Millions celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. They greet
one another, “He is risen, he is risen indeed.” Are Christians making a bigger
deal of the Resurrection than Jesus did? Jesus thought the words of Moses and
the prophets far more central to our relationship with God.
Read Luke 16:19-31. Here’s the Sagebrush Gospel translation.
There was a gate outside a rich man’s home. Scripture doesn’t name the man. It
could be any rich man. Like many, this one wore the finest clothes and “feasted
sumptuously,” and like many, he could not see the poor in front of him.
By his gate, lay a poor man. It’s Lazarus. He’s suffering,
covered with sores. He would be happy with food scraps falling from the rich
man’s table. The man inside the house offers nothing. Of all God’s creatures,
only the dogs care for Lazarus, coming to lick his sores. That was the limit of
comfort Lazarus received in his dying days.
Death reverses fortunes.
The poor man died. The rich man eventually did as well. The fortunes
of both are suddenly reversed. Lazarus is carried away by angels to sit with Abraham.
The rich man is received, not by angels, but by gravediggers. They bury him.
From the grave, he is ushered into Hades. His greatest penalty is that, from
his place in the afterlife, he sees Lazarus and Abraham.
He calls out to Abraham. He wants mercy, asking only a touch
of water to cool his tongue. He asks Abraham to dispatch the man whom he
watched suffering day after day at his gate. Even in his tormented afterlife,
he views poor people as nothing more than his servants.
Abraham calls him, “Child,” speaking condescendingly to the
rich man, who in his life had power and good things. No one would have dared
call him “child” back then. But, this is now. “Child,” says Abraham, “during
your lifetime, you had all the good things and that fellow who laid suffering
at your gate had none. You watched him die alone without inviting him into your
palace. You refused to feed him or offer any comfort. And now, you want him to
bring you a few drops of water to cool your tongue.
“Between the two of us, that’s not going to happen. There is
too much distance between your life and his.”
The rich man is left to beg. He understands his fate is
sealed. His thoughts turn, perhaps for the first time, to the needs of others.
He has five brothers. “Send Lazarus to them,” he asks. “He can warn them so
that what has happened to me will not happen to them.”
It is the condemned man who, from Hades, raises the
possibility that others might repent if only they could see someone resurrected
from the dead.
“Nope,” responded Abraham. “It doesn’t work like that.
Witnessing someone rise from the dead will make no difference to those who have
been deaf to the words of Moses and the prophets.”
This comes from the same Jesus whose resurrection Christians
gather to celebrate this morning. Yes, we celebrate the Resurrection as we
should, but following Jesus means a great deal more. It means listening to the
words of the prophets and Moses rather than simply focusing on the Easter event
for salvation.
Remember Lazarus while in church today shouting
“Hallelujah,” after spending the week oppressing the foreigners among us,
marginalizing people on food stamps, asking congress to take healthcare from
others, rejecting fellow human-beings because of who God created them to be, or
otherwise hoarding God’s blessings.
If you’re going to write a letter-to-the-editor, remember,
these are Jesus’s words, not mine. Jesus was serious about that Matthew 25
stuff. Celebrating someone coming back from the dead pales in comparison to
reversing the fortunes of those who are hungry, homeless and hurting.
Easter is a day for celebrating reversals of fortune. Ask
Jesus. He’ll tell you the story of Lazarus and the rich man.
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