Thursday of the Second Week of Lent
The condemning sin of the rich man was not being rich, nor was it merely his failure to alleviate the suffering of poor Lazarus. Notice where Lazarus dwelt: And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores. This means every day when the rich man went out he has to step over this poor man, had to choose deliberately to pretend he was not even there, even though Lazarus would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man’s table. He would not even send such scraps to the door of his own house, and yet in the afterlife he has the boldness to beg the righteous Abraham for a drop of water! And Abraham surely would have but for the great chasm that existed between them, that no one from either side might cross over. For the righteous with Abraham would cross over to show pity; the unrighteous would cross over to escape their just punishment
For those in the bosom of Abraham are at rest: they are there because they have lived righteous lives, doing the works of Abraham, their father: If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works of Abraham, Jesus says (John 8:39), and Abraham did whatever God asked of him, and thus he was righteous; his heart was never hardened against God. But the rich man, like his ancestors in the desert, hardened his heart against Lazarus and thus against God and His righteousness, and thus the words of Psalm 95 cry out: This people’s heart goes astray; they do not know my ways. Therefore I swore in my anger: they shall never enter into my rest (Psa 95:10-11). If we are children not merely of Abraham but of God, then let us do His works, laboring faithfully until we enter into His rest, not in the bosom of Abraham but in the place He has prepared for us Himself (John 14:2) in the house of our Father, where even Abraham is His son.