dust and promises (a sermon for Ash Wednesday)

We gather this evening to mark the beginning of the season of Lent, and yet it feels like we’ve been stuck in a perpetual Lent since last March. We’ve given up so much already - hugs and time together, milestones and celebrations, work and school. Separated from one another and our usual routines, we have been spending plenty of time in the wilderness. 

Photo by Kunj Parekh on Unsplash

We gather this evening to be marked with ashes and hear of our mortality. And yet, when at least 488,000 people in our country have died from COVID and millions more have been seriously ill, we don’t really need to be reminded of how fragile and fleeting life is.

We gather this evening to be brought face-to-face with our sin and brokenness. And yet, over the past year in particular we have been confronted almost daily by our own selfishness and unwillingness to make sacrifices on behalf of the vulnerable. We have witnessed the harm of racism, and the brokenness of systems that privilege the wealthy and well-connected, and the idolatry of the cross wrapped in a flag. Too often, we have placed our treasure and our hearts and our trust in things that are just as broken and fraught as we are.

Somehow, this year these Ash Wednesday themes seem both superfluous and more needed than ever. In the midst of the reality of sin and death in our lives, we are desperate for God’s words of promise, and wholeness, and life.

Ash Wednesday is about twin promises - the promise that we are mortal and will die; and the promise that we belong to God, and that death doesn’t get the last word. 

This is true - we are mortal. Life is finite, and fragile. The breath that fills our lungs is not guaranteed. We are dust, and to dust we shall return. 

This, too, is true - we are dust that was shaped and formed and created by God. The breath that fills our lungs is God’s own breath. We are called beloved, and we are never alone. Sin and death are not the end of the story. In the waters of baptism, we are joined to Christ’s death so that we might also be joined to his resurrection. 

As we enter again, still, into the wilderness of Lent, we cling tightly to God’s promises. We are dust, yes, but we are redeemed dust; precious dust; beloved dust. The God who knelt in the dirt to form us, the God whose own breath fills our lungs - that God promises be with us always, promises wholeness when we are broken, and promises life when the threat and pain of death seems ever-present and overwhelming. These are the promises we cling to, and the hope we share.