remember you are dust

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

How easy it is to forget we are dust.

How easy it is, with warm bodies, full stomachs, and money in the bank to forget we are dust.

How easy it is to mindlessly nod along as the pastor exhorts us to remember our position were it not for Christ’s intercession.

How easy it is to go through the motions of acknowledging sin and accepting grace without actually doing so.

If it is difficult to remember we are dust, and to dust we shall return, then it becomes exponentially more difficult when, after the sign of the cross is brushed onto foreheads in ashes and oil, we are told to turn from sin and be faithful to Jesus.

For to turn from sin requires acknowledgment of its hold, both its viselike grip and its soft, secret caress.

For to turn from sin requires admitting that we cannot save ourselves and that we are done trying.

For to turn from sin requires a perspective and a purpose that is rooted in something—Someone—more than the meager decades we will endure in this place inhabiting earthly bodies built for decay.

For to turn from sin requires we look at ashes and oil smeared, cross-shaped, onto our foreheads and admit that Christ alone is capable of bearing the weight of the sin of humanity.

So, dear friends, let us remember for just a moment that we are dust, dust that is filled with Holy breath, to become human flesh, that, though bound on earth to live a sinful life, still bears the Imago Dei, the image of God.

And let us remember that to dust we shall return, for these sinful bodies cannot last, and our souls were not made to be separated from their Creator forever.

Yet while we are still here, before we return to dust, let us not simply turn from sin, let us run from sin into the open arms of our dear beloved Savior, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning its shame.

And let us, dear friends, through the grace He freely offers us, be faithful to Jesus.