The Rich Man and Lazarus

We started the Beatitudes right after Chinese New Year, but then we had this one week before doing Easter, so we went back and did this one more parable, which illustrates to some extent the Beatitudes—the blessed one in this story was the one who was meek and mournful in life.

We first introduced our Rich Man, dressed in a red suit jacket, sitting down to a meal featuring photos of chicken, fish & veggies (a good Chinese meal) and a bottle of wine. We said he had a wall around his house to keep unsavory types from getting too close, & put up a “wall” made of large pieces of cardboard joined together. Lazarus the beggar (in a torn shirt) sat outside the wall hoping to receive alms from the rich man. But when he left his house (my embroidery again!), he would purposely go out another way to avoid passing Lazarus—from behind his wall he went into one bedroom which connects with bedroom two which connects to the living room well on the other side of the wall.

Lazarus wished he could eat some of the rich man’s leftovers, which a servant scraped off the plates into a wastebasket which he set outside the wall. But when he tried to get some out of the garbage, the servant threw stones at him, wounding him (I know, lots of embroidery here, just trying to be more visual). The dogs (boy in a dog mask) would come and lick his wounds.

Well, poor Lazarus was pretty miserable, but believe it or not, God loved him very much. When he died, two angels (men in halos) picked him up and carried him off to heaven, where Abraham (in long white beard) fed him grapes (or at least he started off that way but then pulled down his beard and ate some himself) and water (I know, I know, but I just couldn’t see having Lazarus nestled up to Abraham’s bosom…)

Then the rich man died and was escorted to “hell” (large box with flames on the side) by a wicked-looking masked lady. The instructions at this point called for the rich man to kneel in the box, but our rich man ended up being the boy who doesn’t know how to kneel, so someone got him a stool.

He begs Abraham to have Lazarus dip his finger in water and send him over to cool his tongue. Abraham says, sorry, it’s impossible to cross from here to there. The rich man says, okay, I know, I was a selfish sinner and don’t deserve anything anyway. But could you send Lazarus to my brothers who are still living? I don’t want them to end up in hell like me! Abraham says, let them learn from the Bible how to be saved. No, they won’t read it, but if someone rose from the dead, then they would listen. Abraham holds up a drawing of the resurrected Christ appearing to the women on Easter morning and says, lots of people won’t believe even if someone rises from the dead; it’s whether their hearts are willing to listen or not. (So this also made a nice bridge to Easter…)

For a game the kids had to dip straws in water and close them off with their fingers, then carry them to the next person in line and empty the water into their mouths. Most of the kids didn’t quite get the covering-the-straw bit, but we discovered it worked well enough if they pinched it & then carried it back to the line upside down. Some drips, of course, but it turned out fun.

For craft time we talked about everyone being invited to heaven’s banqueting table if they are willing. Then we made these little “banquet tables”, with four dowel legs blu-tacked to a cardboard table top, a white tablecloth, fancy place settings from the internet that we made into stickers, and little fabric flowers for just a few cents each also stuck on with blu-tack. (Love that stuff and love double-sided tape!)