Remembering that we are but dust is actually a good thing

Drawing closer to Christ by recognizing our mortality

The Christian season of Lent begins with Ash Wednesday. On February 26, 2020 the Disciples of First Christian Church will join Christians from around the world in a time of prayer, reflection, and confession. We will acknowledge how far we have fallen from God’s intentions, our need for the grace of Christ, and the help that we receive from the Holy Spirit on a daily basis.

Ash Wednesday is a new concept for some people in our church. Many have grew up in other Christian traditions who did not celebrate Lent. Sometimes I encounter people who wonder whether spending so much time focused on sin and brokenness is helpful. Jesus has already died for our sins. Doesn’t a time of penitence and self-reflection deny his forgiveness and turn the faith into a process of works righteousness?

While I do not deny the sincere faith of those who hold these views, I would contend that they are not fully recognizing the purpose of Lent. This is not a time of earning our salvation or making us right with God. It is a time of prayer reflection on how closely we are following God’s call for our lives.

Jesus fasted and prayed

It is a time of preparation. Spending a focused time in prayer and spiritual discipline readies us to more fully carry out God’s will. This is why Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness after his baptism fasting and praying before he began his ministry. He needed that time to focus himself on the immense task that lay before him.

Self-denial gives us the opportunity to honestly evaluate whether we have allowed material pleasures to become idols which distract us from fully trusting in God’s provision. Human beings are inherently limited creatures. None of us are perfect. None of us are able to achieve all the things that we wish to accomplish.

Sometimes we do not want to accept this reality and we strive to fill the holes in our lives with the comforts of money, possessions, power, and prestige. All of these efforts are doomed to fail. We simply are not equipped to be god of our own lives. We need help from an outside source. Christians believe that Jesus is the source of that help.

Fasting is an act of trust. Giving up something we hold dear reminds us that our true source of joy is Jesus himself. When we fast in healthy ways (please note this does not include eating disorders or other forms of self-harm), we are provided with a chance to refocus our time, attention, and resources on our relationship with the one who made us.

For example, the hunger pangs of an intentionally skipped meal might be a reminder to pray. The money we would have spent on a fancy desert could be given to a local food pantry.

A brief primer on Ash Wednesday from the Church of England.

The journey begins on Ash Wednesday

This is why the congregation will be asked to undertake a Lenten discipline tonight. Sometimes being gently pushed outside our comfort zone for a period of time is what we need to be able to more fully appreciate what God has done for us through the gift of Jesus Christ.

Tonight I will invite people to follow Jesus into the wilderness. By spending forty days with him there, I pray that we will be able to more fully appreciate the depth and meaning of his death and resurrection.

Part of that invitation will include the phrase, “remember you are but dust, and to dust you shall return.” Essentially, I get to say to people, “your time on earth is limited. You are limited. You need someone bigger than yourself to fill in the gaps.”

This sounds like a downer, but it really is not. It is a way of saying that we are free. We are not responsible to fix the world on our own. We are not as powerful as we think we are. We are able to rely on someone greater than ourselves.

That someone is Jesus. He has come to us. He has shown us what God’s love looks like. He has overruled sin and death. He has invited us to follow him and experience the kingdom of God in our own lives. The way has been cleared, but we often choose not to follow him, instead wandering off destinations of our own devising.

Lent is our chance to reorient ourselves. It is our chance to spend time with Jesus in the wilderness of our world. Let us remember that we are limited human beings. We cannot do this on our own. The good news is that we don’t have to. God’s own Son has invited us to follow him and experience the abundance of his grace.