From Dust You Are and to Dust You Shall Return

Ash Wednesday is a compelling day in the Christian calendar, one I wish more churches would observe. It serves as a reminder of our flawed, frail, and fallible nature. We are broken but not beyond repair.

Ash Wednesday underscores the fact that we are made from dust, echoing the creation narrative found in Genesis 2:7, where it states, “the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” Humans did not simply emerge from nothingness; we are not eternal beings. We have a beginning, and that beginning is rooted in dust, dirt—the elements of the earth, the essence of creation. This beginning is distinctive within the creation narrative. While God spoke everything else into existence, He shaped humans as a potter forms clay. Then, God bestowed upon us something extraordinary: the breath of life, setting us apart from the rest of creation.

Ash Wednesday serves as a poignant reminder of this truth. Alongside acknowledging our mortality with the words, “from dust you are, and to dust you shall return,” spoken by the officiant as they mark worshippers’ foreheads with a cross of ash, it prompts us to reflect on our origins: the dust of the earth, formed by God and infused with the breath of life.

This beautiful picture of humanity’s creation, with God’s call for us to live as His image-bearers, is marred by the Fall (Genesis 3), when death entered creation. Ash Wednesday also calls us to reflect upon this reality.

The prophet Joel is often invoked on Ash Wednesday to summon worshippers to a solemn fast with the following words:

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster. Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord your God? Blow the trumpet in Zion; consecrate a fast; call a solemn assembly; gather the people. Consecrate the congregation; assemble the elders; gather the children, even nursing infants. Let the bridegroom leave his room, and the bride her chamber. Between the vestibule and the altar let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep and say, “Spare your people, O Lord, and make not your heritage a reproach, a byword among the nations. Why should they say among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’” – Joel 2:12–17

Joel calls everyone, from the youngest to the oldest, to repentance. All are urged to cease their activities, regardless of inconvenience, and come together to repent. It is noteworthy that this call to repentance is not solely individual but communal as well.

The inquiries we pose to ourselves individually should also be posed corporately: “How have I failed to love my neighbors?” ought to be coupled with “How have we as a Church failed to love our neighbors?” “How have I failed to follow Christ?” should be paired with “How have we as a Church failed to follow Christ?”

The Christian calendar does not merely provide us with a single day to contemplate these questions. It presents the season of Lent: forty days dedicated to daily introspection, to “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Yes, this is something we should engage in every day, which is why many churches incorporate a weekly corporate confession and assurance of pardon into their liturgies. However, this weekly routine, combined with life’s pressures, can often lead us to trivialize this call to repentance or even forget it altogether. Ash Wednesday and Lent offer us a special period, a clarion call to undertake this vital task of self-examination and communal reflection. It helps us focus and discern where we need to repent and grow.

Ash Wednesday and Lent may seem somber and disheartening. It may not feel pleasant to pause, reflect, and acknowledge, “What am I (or we) doing that is not pleasing to Christ?” but it is imperative. Are we on the narrow path that Jesus says leads to life, or are we on the broad way that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13-14)?

The Lenten season concludes not with despair but with the joyful proclamation of the risen and triumphant Christ. Lent commences with the recognition that we are broken, illuminates the path to restoration, and culminates with the assurance of complete restoration to our original purpose: image-bearers of the Creator God. This promise is guaranteed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And now, let us heed the call to fasting and repentance as articulated in the Book of Common Prayer:

Dear People of God: The first Christians observed with great devotion the days of our Lord’s passion and resurrection, and it became the custom of the Church to prepare for them by a season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism. It was also a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church. Thereby, the whole congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution set forth in the Gospel of our Savior, and of the need which all Christians continually have to renew their repentance and faith.

I invite you, therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy Word. And, to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer.