By the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return. Genesis 3:19
Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten Season. It is a day that we remember that from dust we have come and dust we shall return. We are called today to reflect on the sin in our lives, our own mortality, and our need for a Savior.
In 1977, Kansas came out with a hit song called “Dust in the Wind.” The lyrics begin like this:
“I close my eyes
Only for a moment and the moment’s gone.
All my dreams
Pass before my eyes, a curiosity.
Dust in the wind,
All they are is dust in the wind.”
And it ends with:
“Now don’t hang on.
Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.
It slips away,
And all your money won’t another minute buy.
Dust in the wind,
All we are is dust in the wind.
Dust in the wind,
Everything is dust in the wind.”
As you read these lyrics, you may be thinking, “That sounds a lot like a passage from the Bible.” Indeed, it does. The songwriter, Kerry Livgren, once said that “the message was out of Ecclesiastes.” Indeed, the use of dust echoes Ecclesiastes 3:20, which is itself an echo of Genesis 3:20. Also, Ecclesiastes repeats over and over again this refrain, “All is vanity and a chasing after wind” (for example, Ecclesiastes 1:14). Interestingly, Livgren wrote “Dust in the Wind” while on a spiritual quest that led him to become a Christian. The grim truth of Ecclesiastes no doubt helped him to recognize his need for a Savior, whom he found in Jesus (or who found him).
“Dust in the Wind” is an appropriate song for Ash Wednesday. We don’t jump ahead in the story to the time of eternal significance. Rather, we take seriously our dustiness, our mortality, our brokenness, and lostness. We feel the pain of human sin, our own sin and the sin of the world. With the Psalms we cry out, “How long, O LORD? Will you hide yourself forever?” (Psalm 89:46).
On Ash Wednesday, Christians throughout the world are marked with ashes as a sign of our terminal dustiness. We wear on our foreheads the symbol of death. Yes, the symbol of death, a cross, one of the most brutal forms of execution ever devised by fallen humanity. Yet, in Christ the cross points to the grace of God that overcomes our sin. It highlights the love of God that never lets us go. So even as we acknowledge our sin and mortality on Ash Wednesday, even as we admit our desperate need for a Savior, we also confess that our Savior has come.
I hope you join us tonight for our service at 6:30 pm in the Sanctuary.
Blessings,
Pastor Hayley