Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our text is the Holy Gospel reading, the story of the rich man and Lazarus, which has already been read.

Dear baptized brothers and sisters of Christ, today we enter the long season of Sundays after Trinity with the liturgical color of green, which symbolizes the growing in Christ that we are to do over the next six months. Today our Gospel reading about the rich man and Lazarus provides a stark wakeup call concerning one area that we need to all grow in, and that is that we all need to grow more aware of the End: heaven and hell. And this is good, because even though we are twenty-some Sundays away from the end of the Church Year, we really do need to start at the End to keep our eyes on the goal of everlasting life.

In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, we learn from Jesus Himself that, "Yes, Virginia, there is a hell," a place of neverending torment and suffering, and yes, some people go there. But on the other hand, there is a heaven, specifically Abram's bosom, the place of blessed everlasting life with the Triune God, neverending joy with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. Heaven and hell are very real and are the only two possible ends for mankind, and so today we will examine why some go to heaven and others to hell.

We really should start at the End every day by remembering our mortality. In Psalm 39:4-5 the believer prays, "O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!"

But we don't like thinking about how fragile our little lives are, do we? So we lay this prayer aside and forget how fleeting we are; we get so caught up in the present that we neglect to prepare for the End. We start our day off by thinking only about our immediate plans rather than remembering where we are ultimately headed. We are not always mindful of the possibility of our death or of Christ's immediate return.

So repent of your forgetfulness, and remember your End. Pray Psalm 90:12, "Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom." The only way to be wise is to start at the End, for not only does God's Word teach the shortness of our lives, but Jesus says at the end of Revelation, "Surely I am coming soon." And we Christians are to respond, "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!" We ask for that same thing when we pray the Lord's Prayer, "Thy kingdom come." This is at the heart of Christian wisdom, to number our days and long for Christ to come quickly and bring our salvation to its fulfillment, so that we can leave this valley of sorrow behind.

But the End is not happy for the unwise, for those who are not prepared for death. As the story of Lazarus and the rich man shows, there are only two ways to go at the end. It's an up or down call by the Judge, as the Epistle to the Hebrews says: "It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment". For those who die before Christ's return, their judgment actually occurs at the time of death. This truth is demonstrated by the rich man and Lazarus: "And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments". There is no third way given.

And this judgment is final and irreversible. When the rich man pleads for a drop of water to relieve his constant burning in hell, Abraham responds, "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". At death it's one way or the other, with no second chances.

Yet the most pressing question after hearing this story is: why did these two men end up in these wildly different places? How was their final residence determined? Many people will look for details in the respective lives of the rich man and Lazarus, and while there are a couple of clues in there about their eternal destination, the ultimate explanation for their permanent residences comes at the end of the story. So the key is to start at the end of the lesson, in the final three verses.

After the rich man pleaded with Abraham that he send Lazarus to warn his five brothers about the torments of hell, Abraham responded, "They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them." The rich man persisted, saying, "No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent." To which Abraham said, "If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead."

Abraham simply pointed the rich man to Moses and the Prophets, the Holy Scriptures, as the place to find the way to repentance and everlasting life. And what is it that Moses and the Prophets preach? Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Again, we need to start at the end, the end of Luke's Gospel, that is. After Jesus had suffered and died for the sin of the world on Good Friday and then had risen on Easter, He appeared to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and Jesus said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, [Jesus] interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." Jesus Himself taught that He is at the center of all the Scriptures, and so He is the only path to everlasting life.

And then later on, in the upper room with the eleven apostles, Jesus said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem".

There you have it: the message of Moses and the Prophets was always about Jesus, about the Gospel of His coming into the world to bear all of your sins and then His resurrection to earn everlasting life in heaven for you. Even before Jesus came, true believers of the Old Testament lived lives of repentance and faith in the coming Messiah, who would save them from their sins. After the preaching of God's Law, the Ten Commandments has shown people their sins and God's condemnation of sin, then the Good News about Christ's suffering, death, and resurrection for the sin of the world is preached to deliver forgiveness of sins in Christ's name. And that is the message which Lazarus believed and by which he was saved, while the rich man had not listened to Moses and the Prophets and had died in unrepentance and unbelief.

Abraham points to Moses and the Prophets as the only hope for the rich man's surviving five brothers, because only from hearing Moses and the Prophets in the Church could they be given repentance and faith in Christ, and everlasting life. It is the rejection of Moses and the Prophets that leads to hell. That is a shocker, since people usually assume that Lazarus went to heaven because he had it so bad in this life, but the rich man went to hell because he showed no mercy to Lazarus and lived decadently. But according to Jesus, those don't decide the case. Rather, it is the person's response to Moses and the Prophets that leads to heaven or hell: the one who believes the Word and repents has everlasting life; the one who ignores the Word and refuses to repent faces everlasting death. As Jesus said, "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned." And elsewhere, Jesus said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life".

Notice how Jesus focuses us on hearing His Word, not on looking for miracles. By this Jesus also dispels the notion that miraculous signs will produce faith when He says that even if someone rose from the dead and spoke to them about hell, they would not come to repentance and faith. If they do not believe Moses and the Prophets, they won't even believe if someone rises from the dead. Only God's Word preached, taught, read, and heard has the power to produce repentance and faith leading to everlasting life. Just think of what Jesus said, "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." The Gospel of Christ crucified and risen alone has the power to create faith, as St. Paul says, "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ." This is why it is so essential to continue hearing the Word in church, so that your faith may be strengthened and preserved by the Word and Sacraments.

So if you start at the end of the lesson, you can see why the rich man ended up in hell: he rejected Moses and the Prophets; he rejected the Word of God; he refused to repent and believe in the Christ.

But if we look at the middle of the lesson, once the rich man is in hell, we can see how he might have deceived himself into thinking that he was actually going to heaven. The rich man called Abraham "father," which shows that the man was a Jew by birth. He thought he was right with God based on his birth status as a child of Abraham, part of Israel. He thought that even though he did not go to church to hear Moses and the Prophets he could be saved; he thought that even though he disregarded what Moses and the Prophets taught about the Christ and a life of repentance, that he could still go to heaven.

But the rich man was not really a child of Abraham because he did not live by faith as Abraham did. The essence of Abraham's faith was that he trusted God's promises, as we heard about in our Old Testament reading. Abraham "believed in the LORD; and [the LORD] counted it to [Abraham] for righteousness." Righteousness: that is what it means to be right with God, to be forgiven and saved. And Abraham is the pattern for how that saving righteousness is received, because he simply trusted God's Word of promise. God promised that Abraham would have a son who would produce as many offspring as the stars in the sky. Though Abraham was nearly 100 years old and his wife was almost 90, and still they had no son, when all human possibility for having an heir was lost, God made a promise and Abraham simply believed it, and all his life long, Abraham lived by faith in God's Word, His promises.

This is why St. Paul holds up Abraham as the perfect example of faith in Romans 4 and Galatians 3. St. Paul writes, "Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham" (Galatians 3:7). And in Romans, Paul says that saving righteousness "will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification" . It is not Jews by birth, but Christians who live by faith that are the true sons of Abraham. Trust in Christ as your Savior from sin and death, and you have everlasting life in heaven.

That is what Lazarus did, and that is why he arrived in heaven, in Abraham's bosom. And Lazarus is an amazing example of the doctrine of justification by faith alone because we are not able to even see any fruits of Lazarus's faith – he was a poor beggar and apparently of no help to anyone. He had no good works to perform, no alms to give; He could do nothing but trust in God for forgiveness of sins and salvation. And while Jesus tells us that the rich man needed no help getting to hell, Lazarus was helpless to get to heaven except by the angels taking his soul. Yet since Lazarus ended up in heaven, we can be certain that he believed the Gospel and clung to it, just like his Father Abraham, who believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.

In Luke's Gospel, it is not the proud and secure people who are saved, but the poor, miserable sinners – like the prodigal son, or the tax collector at the Temple who prayed, "God be merciful to me, a sinner," while the Pharisee boasted, "God, I thank you that I am not like these other sinners – I do good works, I tithe." Do you think Lazarus was living his best life now, or the victorious life of faith? Do you think he looked inside himself to test how big his faith in God was? No, he was down and out, recognized himself as a poor, miserable sinner, and simply trusted the Word of God that promised forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation.

Likewise for you, my Christian friends. Even though all you can see in your heart is sin and death, and you recognize that you justly deserve condemnation for your sins, believe God's promise for you: Jesus Christ has died for your sins and risen to justify you, to declare you righteous and holy and saved. In your Baptism, God the Father made you a true child of Abraham by giving you the Holy Spirit, forgiveness of sins, and faith. As you continue to hear Moses and the Prophets and the apostles here in the Church, God's Word will continue to produce repentance and trust in Christ as your Savior. And as you gather here at the feast of Christ's true body and true blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins, Jesus Himself promises you an eternal place in His banquet in heaven which has no end.

So to get things right, start at the end. To understand why Lazarus is in heaven, start at the end of the lesson and see that it is faith in Christ's Word and in faithful hearing of Christ's Word that you have assurance of everlasting life. So start with that in mind every morning: begin with remembrance of your Baptism, confession of the Creed and prayer to remind you that your End that is coming soon. And every minute of every day, don't think that your end is decided by obedience to God's Law, but rather through faith in Jesus Christ, as St. Paul writes in Romans 10, "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." And that is the way to Abraham's bosom. In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And the peace of God which passes all understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.