Dust & Ashes
Job 42:1-6—Then Job replied to the LORD: “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”
Today is Ash Wednesday, marking the beginning of the season of Lent. The season of Lent is a very sombre and sober season of the church year. Ash Wednesday sets us on the right course to remember and commemorate our Lord’s suffering and death on Good Friday. One of the chief messages of the season of Lent is repentance, remembering the need for Good Friday to happen in the first place—our great and many sins.
Last week we looked at the plight of Job after the devil had brought pain and suffering into his life unlike anything you or I ever have and probably ever will experience. And all this according to the permission of the Lord! After holding firm for so long to the promises of the Lord and trusting his plan, Job finally caved into the false beliefs of his friends. They had accused him of committing some terribly great sin because that was the only reasonable explanation for why God would be punishing him in this way. Finally, Job gave in. Though, instead of falling into the lie of believing God was punishing him justly for a sin (for God does not punish us, but punished Christ in our place). Job fell into the other ditch of accusing God of punishing him unjustly.
That’s when God showed up and put Job in his place (Job 38-41). God thundered with his law to show Job his sin of arrogance, pride, and self-righteousness. That’s when Job replied with the words of our devotion today. Job rightfully saw the Lord’s rule, power, wisdom, and love. Job also rightfully saw his own place because of his sin: I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.
How important it is for us to also stand before the Lord, the Holy One, Creator of all, and also our Savior, and confess: I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes. For, this is exactly what we are. We are indeed nothing but dust and ashes. This is what God formed us from in our mother’s wombs, and to this we shall return when we die.
This is why, in traditional Ash Wednesday services, during the ceremony of the “Imposition of Ashes” (ashes from the burnt palm fronds from the previous year’s Palm Sunday smeared upon the forehead or top of the hand in the form of a cross) the minister declares: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
We are certainly dust and ashes. And yet, we are dust and ashes that God loves dearly. We are the dust and ashes that he formed with his own powerful hand in the womb of our mothers (Ps. 139:13). We are the dust and ashes that the Son of God took upon himself when he was conceived by the Holy Spirit. We are the dust and ashes he came to seek and to save. We are the dust and ashes for whom he poured out his blood until death so that this dust and these ashes might live with him eternally!
Dear friends, as we begin and then journey through the season of Lent, remember these two striking truths: 1) left to our own devices, we are dust and ashes doomed to death because of our sin; 2) because of God’s boundless mercy and love, we are dust and ashes which he has redeemed and set apart as holy in his sight! May these two truths lead you to daily repentance, thanking God for his goodness found in Good Friday during this season of Lent, always with your eyes fixed on the glorious light shining forth from the empty tomb drawing ever closer these 40 days of Lent.