The purpose of this special embassy of the angel was to announce to the Virgin the exceptional and signal honour to which she had been selected as the mother of the Lord. Through this mysterious relationship she became the source and messenger of rest and holiday to a sin-scourged world. But the picture which the words to which we have limited our text bring before us is that of an angel visiting a city, a messenger from God coming amongst the crowded habitations of men.
I. Angels have visited great cities on various embassies and with divers missions. The historic page of Scripture is sometimes shaded by the wing of the angel of wrath, and sometimes brightened by the alighting of the angel of light. And, surely, if not visibly, angels are busy upon ministries of favour and beneficence still. Surely the same celestial garrison is on duty now as watched the faithful in time past. Surely there is the same alacrity of service, the same vigilance of guardian jealousy among the shining ones. And, surely, the charge has not been withdrawn which the Lord gives to His angels concerning us, to bear us in their mighty hands, and to minister unto those who are the heirs of salvation.
II. Be this, however, as it may, the mind which is thoughtful, and the heart which is devout, will discern a kind of impersonal angelic ministry in the recurrence of seasons, and in the footsteps of advancing time. If there are tongues in trees and books in the running brooks, surely we may find mouths in the months and lips in the lapsing days. Just as the half-way house invites to rest, so should the sixth month, the half-way month, invite us to a calm revision of our spiritual whereabouts. If June does but come as an angel to your Nazareth to show the Christians' half-way resting-place, and lead you to the Cross again, the straps which bound sin's tonnage to your back shall burst asunder, and you shall stand upright, a freed man in Christ. If you cannot get away from Nazareth with its workshops, let the Workman of Nazareth come and turn Nazareth itself into a resting-place. He will not despise it because it is a place of toil, but will come to work beside you, that you may rest with Him.
A. Mursell, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xx., p. 21.
The Great Gulf.
Consider the lasting distinction between the condition of the rich man and of Lazarus which the text brings before us. Abraham says that between the rich man and Lazarus a great gulf was fixed, so that none could pass from one side to the other. A great gulf fixed;observe, it is no slight interval, no trifling difference, but it is a chasm, a gulf and a wide one; and, moreover, it is fixed,the word in the original Greek is quite as strong as that which our English version has given, perhaps stronger; it means that this gulf or chasm has been firmly and durably established, that it is no slight or accidental difference which it may be hoped that time will blot out, but that it is a deep wide gap which no reasoning can hide, and no time can ever heal. It is most necessary that, as this is our Saviour's own description, we should take His words in all the fulness of their meaning, of course not straining them beyond their intention, but, also, not cutting off from them any of their strength.
I. What I conceive, then, that our Lord asserts in the text is this, that there is a great impassable gulf fixed between the spiritual condition of those whom He represents by the rich man, and those whom He represents by Lazarus. The great gulf is not between the rich and the poor, not between those who have been favoured by God in this life and those who have been chastened by Him, but it is between those who have so used this world as to starve their spirits, those who have fixed their eyes so firmly on the things of time and sense that they could not see the realities of a future world, those who have become carnal and sensualised because they must needs give all their efforts to feed their bodies, and have been content to leave their souls uncared for.
II. And without pretending to go into the deep mystery of the other world, yet this, at least, is enough to show us the greatness of the gulf, and why it is so firmly fixed; the joys of heaven are spiritual, there is no pleasure there for a man who has no fear of God, no pleasure in obeying Him; and therefore he who by a long course of carelessness and self-indulgence and neglect of God has hardened his soul, has thereby put a gulf between heaven and him. The mere possibility of doing so should make all of us ask ourselves earnestly and with trembling, how far we are improving our opportunities. Even this is the seed-time of a long existence, and he who does not sow good seed, or having sown it does not water it and weed it, may not complain if his crop fail in the end.
Bishop Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,2nd series, p. 216.
References: Luke 16:26. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. ix., No. 518; J. Keble, Sermons for Sundays after Trinity,part i., p. 20; Homilist,vol. vi., p. 25.