From Dust To...

"By the sweat of your face

    you shall eat bread
until you return to the ground,
    for out of it you were taken;
you are dust,
    and to dust you shall return.”

                        (Gen 3:19 NRSV)

Once a year we mindfully return to the beginning. We remember who is actually in charge. It is God. He who formed us from the dust of the earth has the ability to return us to that place. As children of Adam and Eve, we remember, that like our parents we also have rejected the will of God for us and are subject to death.

Fortunately, we can look at all of this with hindsight. We can look back and know that even as the first man, Adam, chose to do his thing and not God's will; the second man who is from heaven, did accomplish God's will on earth for us. This man, Jesus the Christ, came so that; although we must return to the dust, all who believe in him will be raised from the dust, even as he was raised from the dead. That is the Good News on this day of sorrow and repentance.  

Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Cor 15:45-49)

It is always an emotional time for me to make the ashy sign of the cross on the foreheads of people that I care about; knowing that we must all return to the dust that we have come from. That reminder that we must die can be very heart-shaking. For those few seconds death overshadows the hope of life. But, in the grand scheme of things, I know that all who believe that Jesus died for our sins, will be raised imperishable. Therein lies the hope within this perishable, sinful life.

Death is inevitable. For all who believe, so is life eternal in the presence of God. God's creation; His children, will walk in paradise once again.

God's Peace - Pr. J