No Crossing Over the Chasm

 

The Rich Man and Lazarus – Luke 16:19-end

Dear Friends, picture two men. One dressed in purple and fine linen, feasting every day, gates open wide to the world’s pleasures. The other covered in sores, lying at that same gate, ignored, hungry, hoping for crumbs that never come. Their names? Only one is given: Lazarus. The rich man remains nameless.

Both die.

The poor man is carried by angels to Abraham’s side—comfort, rest, dignity at last.

The rich man is buried, and in Hades he lifts his eyes in torment, seeing Abraham far off with Lazarus at his side.

“Father Abraham, have mercy on me,” he cries, “and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.”

Abraham’s answer is gentle but final: “Child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner bad things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.”

The rich man pleads again—not for himself now, but for his five brothers still living: “Send Lazarus to warn them, so they won’t come to this place of torment.”

Abraham replies: “They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.”

“But if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.”

“If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” (Luke 16:19-31 ESV)

Jesus doesn’t give us a sermon here. He gives us a window. Two lives, two deaths, two eternities. The rich man didn’t go to torment because he was rich—he went because he was blind. Blind to the man at his gate. Blind to the cries of the poor. Blind to the God who calls us to see our neighbour and act. He had Moses and the Prophets every Sabbath, but they never moved from his ears to his eyes, his eyes to his hands.

Lazarus had nothing in this life. Nothing but sores, hunger, and the gate of a man who never looked down. Yet he is named. Known. Carried.

This story burns. Not with hellfire, but with a question: who’s at my gate?

Not always a beggar with sores. Sometimes it’s the colleague who’s quietly falling apart, the neighbour who never gets a hello, the family member we’ve stopped really seeing, the stranger we scroll past because it’s easier. Who’s at the gate while we feast—on comfort, busyness, distraction, our own plans—and never notice?

Jesus isn’t saying money is evil. He’s saying blindness is. And the cure isn’t more information; it’s looking. Really looking. Then doing something about what we see.

The rich man’s brothers still have time. They still have Moses and the Prophets. They still have the words that say love your neighbour as yourself. They still have the One who would soon rise from the dead. But even resurrection won’t move a heart that refuses to see the man at the gate.

Today, pause. Look around your own life. Who’s lying at your gate—maybe not begging for bread, but begging for attention, kindness, time, justice, a listening ear? What would it look like to stop feasting long enough to notice? To let your eyes be opened? To let your hands move?

We’re not saved by our charity. We’re saved by the One who saw us at the gate of death and came down to lift us. But the proof that we’ve truly seen Him is that we start seeing them.

Point to Ponder: Eternal destinies are shaped not just by what we believe, but by what we see—and what we do about what we see.

Verse to Remember: “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” (Luke 16:31 ESV)

Question to Consider: This week, who is at your gate—someone you’ve walked past, scrolled past, or simply stopped noticing? What’s one small, concrete thing you could do to see them properly and respond with mercy, not tomorrow, but today?

Article written by Shaun Fereday, Leader @SFGH Church