Luke 16:19-31 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost Sunday, September 28, 2025 “The Great Chasm Between Heaven and Hell”
How did we get here? Sometimes it’s good to ask and answer that question, especially when we notice an issue. For example, it seems some people have been asking the question now in the realm of politics. How did we as a society get to the point where we are so divided? Why do people have such fundamentally different opinions about the idea that all murders are wrong, and even argue that some might not be so terrible? How did we get here? Maybe you’ve come to a particularly challenging point in your life or a certain relationship. How did things get so bad? Why did they seem to fall apart? And we don’t only ask that question about bad things. Sometimes we step back and marvel about how so many individual circumstances and opportunities and choices brought us to a place better than what we planned or expected. Maybe we even realize that we couldn’t have planned it all out. So how did we get here? Sometimes the way we answer that question helps us figure out what to do next. If we feel that intense and unkind political rhetoric is forcing people to extremes, maybe we need to step up and be a calming voice working to bring the temperature down instead of throwing fuel on the fire. Maybe a crisis point in our relationships is a chance to change our own behavior to build up instead of tear down. Maybe if we have gotten to a place where we don’t want to be, we can aim for a new place, a different place. I wonder whether the rich man in the story Jesus told asked himself, “How did I get here?” If he did, it was too late to be asking the question. It was too late to be taking a different direction. Here is hell. The Greek word (which shows up in some translations) is Hades, but don’t think about it like mythology. This is not some imaginary world of the dead. It is not a made-up idea as many suggest today. It is a place of torment. The rich man is there, in torment. He begs for a drop of water to cool his tongue as if that would really provide any sort of relief. That is how desperate he is. But no relief is coming. That’s what Abraham tells the rich man from far away. Lazarus, by Abraham’s side would not be making the trip from heaven to hell. As Abraham explains, there is a great chasm in between. No one crosses from one to the other. The rich man, whose name we do not know, was on the wrong side of the chasm because of what he did in life. When Jesus tells this story, he doesn’t really dwell on that. In fact, Jesus leaves a lot of interesting questions unanswered. He allows us, like so many who listened to him, to fill in details that we know from other teachings of Jesus. We know that all people are sinners. We know that Jesus died to save people from their sins. We know that the forgiveness and salvation Jesus won comes to us as a free gift through faith. There is a great chasm between the hell that we deserve and the heaven that Jesus earned for us, won for us, and gives to us. We know Jesus gives to us a lifetime, a time of grace in which we might come to faith. It is the opportunity he gives to trust that he bridges the great chasm. After that time, as the rich man learned, it’s too late. Those in torment in hell do not pass over to the place at the side of Abraham and all the saints. How many opportunities did the rich man pass by when he might have had that chasm bridged by Jesus? We don’t know the answer. What we know is that he spent a lifetime living in luxury. He spent a lifetime enjoying amazing food and wearing fine clothes. He spent a lifetime pursuing and enjoying those things that brought an immediate response and reaction. These things brought joy or happiness in the moment. They may have felt fulfilling at the time. They probably had him convinced that he was living life in the best way possible. And perhaps if those days were the only perspective we have on it, he may have been correct. But the whole point of Jesus’ story is that there is more to it. The rich man died, but that was not the end. He was buried, but he continued to exist. What had helped him in life, his great wealth and luxurious possessions, did nothing for him in death. They did nothing to help bridge the chasm between what he deserved as a sinner and what ought to have been his heavenly goal. The story also draws a contrast between the rich man’s life and its result and the life of a man who lived close to him. This man’s name we know. It was Lazarus. He was a beggar. He was covered in sores and