Ash Wednesday

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be always acceptable to thee, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer, and Lord, give us here today, eyes to see and ears to hear so we can learn your word together as a family. We offer you all the praise, honor, and Glory for it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Good evening, my fellow encouragers!

When I was a young Marine in 1977, Kansas, the rock group, released the song “Dust in the Wind,” which remained on the charts for a long time. It quickly became one of my all-time favorite songs. As an active-duty Marine at the time, it helped to remind me of my mortality and the seriousness of my job.

Lyrically, the song has themes reminiscent of biblical passages like Ecclesiastes 3:20 (“All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return.”) and Genesis 3:19 (“…for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”), the latter of which we’ll hear often tonight. The song underscores the message about the transience of human life.

At a point in time when being put in harm’s way was always just a command away, this song grounded me, probably because I grew up having a cross-shaped smudge of dark black ashes put prominently on my forehead.

The Imposition of Ashes is an ancient rite that signals the start of Lent. The words spoken are simple, sober, and accurate. I have said them to hundreds of people over the years, and some of their foreheads stand out in my memory.

While I was a young priest in Conroe, an elderly woman (still wearing high heels and a pink leather pantsuit, mind you) shuffled forward to receive the ashes. She was well into her upper 90s and grew thinner and weaker each time I saw her. “Would this be her last time?” I thought.

And just last year, I visited our John in the nursing home. Bedridden, he smiled slightly as I drew the cross on his forehead. I wonder if he knew that would be his last time.

I felt terrible to have to say those eleven words. Like Ms. Sara, he took them to heart more than most: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

I remember a young new mother who came to the altar rail with her sleeping baby. That was difficult for me.

Her baby was less than a month old, with soft and pure skin. How could I dare remind this young woman that her near newborn child would die and would go down to the dust? How awful!

But it is true. None are exempt. The words were hard, but I voiced them anyway and tried not to wake the child. I touched the new forehead lightly: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

For some reason, I remember a lanky teenager. He could have been me years earlier. I was an associate Priest in New Braunfels. He came forward with his hands in his pockets. His body language said that he was too cool to be there. His parents stood behind him with all their many other stair-stepped children, and I knew they had made him come.

Somehow, the cross I made on his forehead was more prominent than most. I didn’t see if he wiped it off or not. He probably did. No matter, it’s still true: Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Foreheads are as different from each other as fingerprints: white skin, black skin, olive toned, low hairlines, receding hairlines, bald, V-shaped widow’s peaks, blond ringlets, tight brownish curls, acne-scarred, a dark unibrow, reddish pimples, brown freckles, elegantly dyed highlights, sometimes the seamed edge of a wig or toupee, to name a few.

But as I think about all the foreheads I have touched over the years, they all seem the same. It’s a perfect, ready-made place God designed to put up a sign. Once a year, we remind ourselves of what the sign says: I am dust. I came from dust. I will go back to dust. But are we only ashes? Or, as the song says, are we only “dust in the wind”?

The Christian faith is the first to tell us that we are going to die. Death is the most apparent and obnoxiously persistent fact of life. After the first Adam confessed to God that he had disobeyed Him and eaten of the forbidden fruit, it’s the first thing God says to him. Genesis 3:17-19 says this:

17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.19 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.”

In other words, “You blew it, Adam!” You had everything here in the garden, even life everlasting. Because of your insolence, the easy life is over. I’ve cursed the ground you were made from. So now, you will surely die and return to that same cursed dirt.”

So, is that it? Are we condemned to a life doomed to death because of Adam’s sin? Just dust in the wind? Praise God for the second Adam, Jesus!

The Apostle Paul has thought this second Adam through. He knows the answer, has proof, and has figured it out. He is sure that we are raised from the dead because he was sure Jesus was raised from the dead, and he shares the extraordinary hope of our resurrected bodies—bodies that are so much more than dust, earth, and mud.

St. Paul puts it this way in 1st Corinthians 15: As was the man of dust (the 1st Adam), so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven (the 2nd Adam, Jesus), so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

In other words, one day, when all the dust settles and stops blowing in the wind, we will be made like Jesus. O Happy Day!