Ashes and Dust

It was a Wednesday night, and I stood quietly in the line, lost in my thoughts, taking a few steps forward as the line proceeded slowly toward the altar.  At last it was my turn and I stepped in front of Pastor with my eyes lowered.  He placed his fingers into the bowl of consecrated ashes, and made the sign of the cross on my forehead.  “Remember, Sean, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  And so it was that I returned to my seat with the cross smeared on my forehead on Ash Wednesday, the official beginning of the Lenten season. 

 

Most of us have heard the common paraphrase, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” mentioned at funerals and memorials.  It is meant to remind us of our mortality, a sort of coping mechanism for the knowledge that we will all have to face the reality of death.  We use it to soothe ourselves, telling us such comforting lies such as, “Death is just a part of life.”  And to an extent this is true.  Death is a part of life.  But it wasn’t always, and it won’t always be thus.  There is a beginning to this story of death.

 

The Bible teaches us in Genesis 1 that, “In the beginning God created…”  It teaches us that as part of this creation, God made man in his own image, male and female, and that God blessed them. God was so pleased with this creation, and with man in particular, that he created for him a garden, and gave man meaningful work, a vocation and calling, and even a wife suitable to help him in the work that God had provided for him.  The two were in communion with their creator, walking with him in this garden face to face.  God was so pleased with this creation, he remarked that it was “very good.”

 

But then something happened, something went wrong.  You see, in the middle of this garden were two trees: The Tree of Life, and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  And it was there that God instructed Adam and Eve, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”  There was this choice for them between obedience to God and life, or disobedience and death.  They could remain in fellowship with the God who had created them to be blessed and good, or they could usurp God’s authority and make themselves that authors of good and evil.  Most of us know the result.  Ultimately, Adam and Eve found it more desirable to usurp that authority and break communion with the God who created them, than to choose life and fellowship with him. 

 

It was in light of this that God cursed Adam and Eve.  It was in this context that God tells Adam that because of his disobedience and the choice for death, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” 

 

I can think of no more tragic story.  Faced with the choice of life or death, Adam and Eve chose death.  It did not have to be this way.  We were not created to be this way, subject to death.  But because of that sin and it’s eternal consequences we all now live in that reality.  But that isn’t the end of the story…

 

You see, sometime after this there was a man named Abraham.  Abraham, was not a perfect man.  He had his faults and failures.  The Bible is almost honest to a fault in this regard.  This man had at one time allowed his wife to be taken for another man, Pharoah of Egypt.  He had taken for himself another wife to bear himself a son, although God had promised him a natural son through his own wife.  He later abandoned this child and his mother in deference to his wife.  But for whatever reason, God chose him for something special.  God chose Abraham to create a nation, and from this one nation, set apart for himself, God would bless all nations. 

 

In the course of time, this nation called Israel fell subject to being slaves in Egypt under a different pharaoh in a different time.  But God delivered Israel with mighty acts so that they might inherit a promised land.  The man who delivered them, was likewise imperfect and flawed.  He was a murderer in fact, and at times could test God’s patience.  But God chose him nonetheless and through him He brought them out of Egypt, and He gave them laws to make them holy and set apart for a special calling. 

 

Although Moses did not live to see the fulfillment of this promise, he knew that God would honor his promise and bring them into this land.  He set before the Israelites the same choice that Adam and Eve had before them.  In his farewell speech to Israel, Moses implored them saying, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.  Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days.” 

 

Likewise, Moses had a protege named Joshua.  Joshua led Israel into the Promised Land, subduing it in accordance with the promise that God had made to Israel.  And at the end of his days, he too addressed Israel, making them participants in this same choice.  “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness…If it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve…But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” 

 

So Israel was reminded of the choice before them, obedience and disobedience, life and death.  But like Adam and Eve, they chose death.  Time and again, Israel chose against God. They worshipped other Gods and transgressed his laws.  They continued in the rebellion that started in that garden.  And as a result, they harvested the fruits of the death they sewed by their choices.  God sent his prophets to them, reminding them of the covenant promises that He had faithfully kept, and of their unfaithfulness in return.  And though they repented periodically, they never did turn back to him.  As a result, God allowed a foreign nation to subdue them and exile them from their homes.  But that wasn’t the end of the story…

 

Eventually God returned Israel to their homes, allowing them to re-settle.  But although they were given the promise of a king that would lead them in righteousness, they continued to forsake him. 

 

Many years later a man named Paul would sum up the wretchedness that we face due to sin.  “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands, no one seeks for God.  All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”  Paul returns us back to the garden with the two trees, summarizing the consequences of the choice we made then, and continue to make.  He tells us, “the wages of sin is death.”  But that wasn’t the end of the story…

 

Although we were hopelessly indebted in our sin to death, God had a plan.  In accordance with the promise that he had made to Abraham to bless all nations through him, God sent his only son.  He came in the flesh, to die in our place and pay that debt.  “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”  Jesus took the death we owe and paid it, once for all, so that we might renew the fellowship that we were originally made to have with Him.  As Paul says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”   

 

During this season of Lent, as I ponder the ashes on my forehead, and the fact that I will one day return to the dust, I have hope.  I too have made the choice for death, many times in my life.  I think of the things I have done that I should not have done, and of the things I have not done that I should have done.  I think of the words I have said that I should not have said, and I think of those times where perhaps I should have spoken but chose not to do so.  I think of the thoughts I have that lead me to sin in my actions and my words.  But that isn’t the end of my story.  I recognize that I am a sinner.  I recognize that I am under the penalty of death.  Most of all, I recognize that I deserve it, and I repent of all of those choices that I have made for death.  As I said, that isn’t the end of my story.  God, through his grace and love has granted me faith in the promise that came through his son, Jesus Christ, and I realize that I have been born into a new life.  I have been born into a life that will not end.  The ashes and dust that I will return to is not my final destination.  I rejoice in the choice that God has made for me, and for the faith the he gives me to receive that promise. 

 

This Lent, I pray that each of us would repent of the choice for death we all have made, and rejoice in the choice for life that God offers us free of charge through his son. 

“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  Blessed is the man against whom the Lord counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.”  -- Psalm 32: 1-2