Who gets to live with God? Isn't that the question all seekers ask? Not just those who are Christians, but everyone wants to know who goes to eternal bliss. We are especially cognizant of the afterlife when we are dangerously close to it. Our brother-in-law died of pancreatic cancer two years ago in December. His wife, my husband's sister, died suddenly ten days prior to Tom's death when she collapsed with a massive stroke. While Bill ferried Tom back and forth from the hospital and the funeral home, Bill talked to Tom about his death. Where did Tom think he would be? Didn't know. Hadn't given it much real thought. Had heard that there is a land "in the sweet by 'n by" but did not believe in it. Then he looked Bill in the eye and said: "But I'm about to find out, aren't I?"
At Pati's funeral, Tom did not want any religious stuff read. Didn't want a bunch of Bible verses. They had not lived that way. In his home later, though, he said he was ready to die because Pati was on the other side waiting for him. Hmm. Wondered then as I do now about what she would have said to him could she have reached him before he died. Would she have said to him what the rich man wanted Lazarus to say to his brothers?
There was a rich man who always dressed in the finest clothes. The jeweled rings on his over-fattened fingers bulged with the flesh surrounding them. Costly nard dripped like treacle from his beard and hair as the scent of him filled the air wherever he walked. Each evening he drank the best wine and ate the fattest lambs. He lacked for nothing.
Lazarus was sick, covered with sores, the pus oozing from his body and crusting on his beard. Left to beg, he was a pariah on the streets. So, some townspeople picked up his blanket by its four corners and dumped Lazarus at the entrance to the rich man's door. Dogs came to lick his sores as he lay there famished, wanting only the scraps that fell to the floor from the rich man's table.
Lazarus died there. No one mourned him in an impressive funeral. He was a filthy beggar.
The rich man died and with great fanfare was buried.
Lazarus was carried to Abraham's bosom. The rich man found himself in the place of the dead, Hades. In this lower part of Hades, the rich man experienced the torment of flaming fires that whipped around him and scorched his body. He was thirsty and destitute. When he looked up, the rich man could see Lazarus safely with Abraham and he cried out: "Send him down here with some water because I am thirsty!"
Abraham answered him. "In your life you received good things and Lazarus bad things. And besides, there is a great chasm fixed between you and us. I cannot send Lazarus to you and you cannot come here."
"Send Lazarus then to my five brothers to warn them lest they come here to this place of torment also! I'm begging you!" Even in hell the rich man saw Lazarus as beneath him..as a servant to his whims.
"They have the Word of God," cried Abraham in reply.
"No, Abraham! They won't listen to that. But if someone came to them from the dead, then they would listen!"
"If they do not believe the words of the prophets, neither will they believe even if someone rises from the dead." And Abraham was done talking.
If at death we go somewhere, shouldn't we be spending at least part of our lives in the quest for where we are going and what the journey is about? Most of us put off the thought because in our minds death is a long way off. Or, we don't think there is anything we can do about it anyway. It is inevitable. But Pati and Tom are somewhere at this moment, and one of them ran out of time before she was perhaps even able to consider it once more.
At Pati's funeral, Tom did not want any religious stuff read. Didn't want a bunch of Bible verses. They had not lived that way. In his home later, though, he said he was ready to die because Pati was on the other side waiting for him. Hmm. Wondered then as I do now about what she would have said to him could she have reached him before he died. Would she have said to him what the rich man wanted Lazarus to say to his brothers?
There was a rich man who always dressed in the finest clothes. The jeweled rings on his over-fattened fingers bulged with the flesh surrounding them. Costly nard dripped like treacle from his beard and hair as the scent of him filled the air wherever he walked. Each evening he drank the best wine and ate the fattest lambs. He lacked for nothing.
Lazarus was sick, covered with sores, the pus oozing from his body and crusting on his beard. Left to beg, he was a pariah on the streets. So, some townspeople picked up his blanket by its four corners and dumped Lazarus at the entrance to the rich man's door. Dogs came to lick his sores as he lay there famished, wanting only the scraps that fell to the floor from the rich man's table.
Lazarus died there. No one mourned him in an impressive funeral. He was a filthy beggar.
The rich man died and with great fanfare was buried.
Lazarus was carried to Abraham's bosom. The rich man found himself in the place of the dead, Hades. In this lower part of Hades, the rich man experienced the torment of flaming fires that whipped around him and scorched his body. He was thirsty and destitute. When he looked up, the rich man could see Lazarus safely with Abraham and he cried out: "Send him down here with some water because I am thirsty!"
Abraham answered him. "In your life you received good things and Lazarus bad things. And besides, there is a great chasm fixed between you and us. I cannot send Lazarus to you and you cannot come here."
"Send Lazarus then to my five brothers to warn them lest they come here to this place of torment also! I'm begging you!" Even in hell the rich man saw Lazarus as beneath him..as a servant to his whims.
"They have the Word of God," cried Abraham in reply.
"No, Abraham! They won't listen to that. But if someone came to them from the dead, then they would listen!"
"If they do not believe the words of the prophets, neither will they believe even if someone rises from the dead." And Abraham was done talking.
If at death we go somewhere, shouldn't we be spending at least part of our lives in the quest for where we are going and what the journey is about? Most of us put off the thought because in our minds death is a long way off. Or, we don't think there is anything we can do about it anyway. It is inevitable. But Pati and Tom are somewhere at this moment, and one of them ran out of time before she was perhaps even able to consider it once more.
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