Genesis 3:19 - Significant Problem - February 17, 2021 - Ash Wednesday

Why are you here this evening? That may sound like a throw-away question, but tonight, I’m serious. Why are you here? You could be at home watching Netflix or eating a quiet dinner or helping your children with their homework. But…you’re here. Why? There must be a pretty significant reason, right? You may think you’re here because you just come to church whenever there is a service out of habit or because you love singing Lenten hymns or because you feel obligated to be here for one reason or another. But you’re not really here for any of those reasons. This day, Ash Wednesday, pulls off the mask of any superficial reasons we may have to come to church. There is really only one good reason for you to be here in God’s house tonight – or any other day, for that matter. And that reason is the direct result of events that took place on one incredibly significant day thousands of years ago in the Garden of Eden. On that day Adam and Eve created a significant problem for humanity – and that’s why we’re here tonight.

For you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Those were God’s last words – last curse, really – to Adam after he and his wife had eaten fruit from the forbidden tree. God had warned them that if they ate the fruit from that one tree that they would surely die (Genesis 2:17) – but they didn’t listen, they didn’t believe, they didn’t trust God’s Word and trusted the words of Satan instead. And from that day on, death became the inescapable end of life for Adam and Eve and all of their ancestors – just as God said it would.

For you are dust, and to dust you shall return is a loaded sentence, packed with meaning. First, it recalls the origin of human life, that God formed Adam from the dust of the earth and breathed the breath of life into him to give him consciousness and life (Genesis 2:7). Second, it acknowledges that because of his sin, Adam’s body would return to dust and his soul would return to God, what we call temporal death (Ecclesiastes 12:7). Third, and most importantly for us tonight, it acknowledges the spiritual death that Adam and Eve had brought into the world by their rebellious actions. Adam and Eve would from that point on be banished from the presence of God, separated from his love, mercy and compassion. Adam would have to live the rest of his life remembering those words of God; longing for his presence; wishing that he could travel back in time and reverse what he had done. But he couldn’t. The dirty deed had been done and could not be undone. Adam and Eve’s fates were sealed: You are dust, and to dust you shall return.

This is no myth nor is it just some interesting piece of history. This story has a direct impact on our lives here and now. Because you and I are conceived and born facing the same problem Adam and Eve did. The Apostle Paul writes: Just as sin entered the world through one man and death through sin, so also death spread to all people because all sinned (Romans 5:12). Worse than, as has been alleged, some scientist in some lab in Wuhan, China somehow getting infected and spreading Covid-19 throughout the world – Adam’s sin infects each and every human being – including you and me, my children and yours – so that it could rightly be said at the birth of a child: you are dust, and to dust you shall return. (How’s that for a greeting card?)

It’s a significant problem, to put it mildly. But it’s a problem that we will go to great lengths to avoid thinking about, to prevent, to delay, to pretend that it doesn’t exist. Why are some of the biggest buildings in our country hospitals? (They’re kind of like the cathedrals of the modern western world.) Why do you think we’re still wearing masks – and now, doubling and tripling them up – even though it is highly debatable what, if any, impact they have on minimizing the spread of Covid-19? Why has our nation poured billions of dollars into developing a vaccine, why do we gobble down prescription pills like candy, why do we spend hours each week running and biking and exercising? Because we suffer under the illusion that by doing those things we can prevent – or at least delay – the onset of death. (I’m not saying that we shouldn’t do what we can to live healthy lifestyles, but the truth is that God has already picked the day you and I will die, and there’s nothing we can do to change his timetable (Hebrews 9:27).) The point being that in spite of our best efforts, in spite of thousands of years of medical and scientific advancements, God’s curse still stands undefeated today: you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

That’s the first reason we’re here this evening. We’re here to agree with God’s proclamation that we are dust. We’re here to confess our sin to God and to one another – which is the root cause of death. We’re here express our sorrow over our sins. We’re here to ask God for forgiveness. We ask God to help us leave our sinful lives behind and to give us the strength to live according to his will.

And yet, there’s something even more important for you to remember this evening than the fact that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Do you know what that is? It’s that God remembers that you are dust. David says in Psalm 103: [God] knows how we were formed. He remembers that we are dust (Psalm 103:14). In fact, God didn’t say those words to Adam just to scare him but to comfort him. God wanted Adam to know that he knew he was dust and promised that he had decided to act on that knowledge. Just four verses before this, on that same significant day, God spoke to Satan and swore that he was going to send someone to crush his head and destroy all his wicked work, including death (Genesis 3:15; 1 John 3:8).

And, as we know, this was more than an empty threat. We know that God has taken action for us on the basis of his knowledge that we are dust. He sent his Son to take on human flesh – to assume our dust, if you will (John 1:14). In terms that even the secular, ungodly world around us could understand, God developed and sent Jesus to earth as the vaccine – not just for a single, mutant virus – but for death itself. Jesus is our vaccine for death because he absorbed all of our sin into his own flesh and suffered the punishment sin deserves. He endured the penalty of eternal death on the cross as he was separated from God’s love, mercy and compassion; separated and abandoned from his eternal Father – which is hell itself – a death he declared with that haunting cry: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46) And when he was done, he went into the earth, into the dust of the ground, when he was buried in a tomb (Matthew 27:57-61).

But here’s the good news. Here’s why we’re really here tonight. You don’t really need me to tell you that you and your children and mine and everyone else in the world is going to die. You know that – even if you try your best to forget, prevent and delay it. No, you’re here tonight because you need to hear me tell you that even though Jesus was laid in the dust, he didn’t stay there. Three days after his burial he rose from the dust to life – just as he said he would (Matthew 28:6). And, because he did, so will you (John 14:19). When he returns in glory, you and all who believe in him will rise from the dust of the earth with new, perfect, glorified bodies. Bodies that are imperishable and immortal, no longer bound by sin or enslaved by Satan or doomed to die (1 Corinthians 15:35-49).

That’s why you’re here tonight. You’re here to gather before this cross because on a cross Jesus earned your forgiveness and your salvation and your life – life after death, life without end. You’re here because by God’s grace and the Holy Spirit’s power (1 Corinthians 12:3) you believe that what is more vital than wearing a mask (or two or three) or receiving a vaccine or staying 6 feet away from “folks you don’t live with,” is to receive this promise, this gift of eternal life through Word and Sacrament. You’re here to stare death in the eye and spit in its face and to shout: death, where is your sting? Grave, where is your victory?...Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! (1 Corinthians 15:55-56) (And, trust me, shouting that is much more satisfying than shouting at someone for not wearing their mask properly!)

There’s no denying the truth that we are dust, and to dust [we] will return. We know it – but far more importantly – God knows it. And he has not left us to waste away into dust. He came here as a helpless baby, a powerful preacher, and a crucified and risen Savior to guarantee that one day we will rise from the dust of the grave to never-ending life in heaven. This is Lent. We don’t need Lent to remind us that we are dust – those reminders are everywhere; we need Lent to remind us that God has not left us in the dust. Amen.