no shade in the shadow of the cross

Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.

It is an odd thing, isn’t it?

To come here on a cold night and hear something as somber as that, that you are dust and to dust you shall return…”

For as odd as our gathering to hear this reminder is, though, this is just the thing we need to hear, the thing we long to hear even…

Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

All of us spend so much of our life, too much of our life, really, denying the fact that we’re creatures, that we’re dust, that we will die. 

…And its exhausting, isn’t it?

Because while we might be able to keep up the charade that we’re the exception, that death will never touch us, that we’re not dust for a while; there are times when the facts are just too blatant, though, aren’t there? 

Those nights of tossing and turning when the sleep won’t come, those times when we get that phone call we all dread, those mornings when we wake up with creaky knees and stiff joints, those afternoons when the boss calls us into the office just before quitting-time, those days at a funeral, those trips to the mailbox only to get an unexpected bill, those evenings when we find ourselves on the hospital bed…

Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return.

For as much as we may pretend otherwise, we are dust; and deep down we all already know it.

Honestly, we don’t need to be reminded that we’re dust, so much as we just need to admit it; we are dust, and whether we like it or not, to dust we will return.

So on a cold night we gather and hear these frank words, “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return…”

Tonight we gather at the one place where we can actually hear the truth about ourselves, the one place where we don’t have to pretend, the one place where we can sit next to other people who are hearing that same truth and so know that we are not alone.

Tonight we gather to confess something we need to, that we’re dust…

Remember, you are dust and to dust you shall return…

While we may long to give up the ghost and just admit the truth, that we’re dust: tonight is about more than that, though. Tonight we gather on this cold eve and hear this reminder because of what God has done.

Remember back to creation, to when God created man and woman. What did God use to make you and me? 

Give up?

Nothing other than dust.

There, back in the Garden of Eden, God and these dust-creatures lived in harmony, in a relationship of love and trust. That is until Adam and Eve, too, succumbed to the temptation of denying that they were dust. 

“But the serpent told the woman, ‘you will not die…’”

The outcome for believing this lie was not immortality though; it was Death - and that always how it goes, isn’t it? Our attempts to evade death always only bring us one step closer to the very thing we run from.

Tonight, as we, for once, give up that game of denying we’re creatures and just confess we’re dust and heading back to it faster than we care to admit, the story of Adam and Eve is reversed. 

Tonight as we just admit we’re dust, we hear another Word, a Word that can overcome Sin and its consequence Death; we hear the Word God spoke over creation long ago: “very good.” 

Soon you will come forward to receive a mark of ashes and hear the solemn reminder that you are dust and to the dust you shall return. 

The mark I will place upon your brow, though; it is merely a tracing, a tracing of a different mark God put upon you long ago; the mark, not of your mortality, but rather the mark of God’s promise to you, your baptismal seal. 

This promise of God frees us from denying our death, from denying that we’re creatures. This promise of God frees us to simply rest in our relationship with God. 

Before The Fall, before we believed the same lie as Adam and Eve; God made a promise; the promise that what God had made was good. Back there in the Garden of Eden, God and humanity both rested in this promise together; God and humans had a relationship of love and trust - a relationship we’ve been searching for ever since. 

As Saint Augustin said, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in God.

That’s true, isn’t it?

Tonight is not about the cold hard fact that we’re dust; tonight is about God’s promise to us - the promise God first made at creation, the promise God makes over and over again, to be our God; our God we can love and trust. 

This promise is the only thing that can restore that original relationship humans and God had way back in the Garden of Eden.

Remember, you and dust and to dust you shall return…

In other words, remember that God has made you, that you don’t have to try to be God because God has taken care of that, that God wants to be your God.

Remember, you are dust - you don’t have to pretend otherwise anymore. You can rest in the promise that the dust God has made you out of, is what God loves.  As Martin Luther said, God doesn’t love us because we’re beautiful; we’re beautiful because God loves us.

Remember, you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Remember that, and find yourself, not running from death anymore, but rather resting in God’s promise, resting in a relationship with God, resting in Eden.

Amen.