The Ashes Don't Lie

Genesis 3:19b (ESV)

“For you are dust and to dust you shall return…”

Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent, is a very solemn day.  On this day, year after year, Christians all over the world go to church to be marked on their foreheads with ashes.  As a Pastor I have led congregation through this ritual for over 30 years now.  Why do we do this?  Well the ashes are a reminder of our sin, a reminder of the curse that hangs over every single one of us because of sin.  The ashes are a call to repent, to confess our sins and seek God’s mercy..  Normally, when a person comes forward on Ash Wednesday, the Pastor takes some ashes on his thumb or finger, marks the persons forward with those ashes in the shape of a cross and repeats these words – “For you are dust and to dust you shall return…”  Those are the words that God spoke to Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 after they sinned.  They announce to all of us the consequences of our sin.  Our sin undoes life.  It brings death to all.  As we were made from the dust of the earth, even so when we die our bodies return to the earth.  Our bodies become dust once more.

The ashes don’t lie.  Every gravestone behind me is proof of that.  We will all die.  We will all return to dust.  Just how true the ashes are became a reality to me on an Ash Wednesday 20 years ago.  My parents had been living near us in Texarkana for about 8 months.  That night dad and mom were in attendance at worship.  They both came forward.  I can see myself putting the ashes on my dad’s head.  “For you are dust and to dust you shall return…”  Little did I know that this would be the last time I would be in worship with my dad.  This would be the last time I would give him Holy Communion.  Three days later, on Saturday morning my dad died.  The words of Ash Wednesday suddenly became all too real.  “You are dust and to dust you shall return.”   The ashes don’t lie.

Death comes to all of us.  It comes in God’s timing, not ours.  That’s a fact that we dare not take for granted.  None of us knows how much or how little time we have.  We need, as the Bible says, “to make the most of every opportunity…”    We need to live knowing that the ashes don’t lie.  When I have an argument with a family member or a friend, that thought intrudes on my mind.  I better go to them and be reconciled.   I may not have another chance.  It’s why whenever we get on an airplane, before I put my cell in airplane mode, I first text these words to our family - “I love you.”   It’s why a good friend, Al Senter, was in such a hurry to finish his online walk through the Bible called “What’s the message.”  He had been dying of heart disease for 15 years.  He really knew his time was coming.  He knew that the ashes don’t lie.  . 

Neither does the empty tomb.  Thank God that the ashes is only the first part of the message.  The rest of the message has to do with how God undoes the ashes.  What begins on Ash Wednesday comes to a climax on Good Friday when Jesus dies for our sin and on Easter morning when Jesus rises again to conquer death.  Because of what Jesus did for us, the ashes are not the end of my dad’s story.  They are not the end of  your story or mine.  Easter complete the message.  The words “He is Risen” complete message.  Because of what Jesus did, the message that is begun on Ash Wednesday is completed by the words of hope that are spoken when we are laid to rest in the cemetery.  Listen to these words – “We now commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him to subdue all things to Himself.”  The ashes don’t lie.  But neither does the empty tomb of Jesus.  “Because He lives, we will live also.”  Have a blessed Lent. Amen.