to dust I will return

The picture to the left is a representation of the ninth station of the cross, depicting the third time Jesus fell on the way to Calvary. This rendering particularly strikes me. While praying through the stations this afternoon I was struck by this station in particular, as it was the first in which Jesus was completely prostrate on the ground . Jesus--mighty, powerful, holy, GOD!--lay crumbled, helpless and still in the hard dirt.

Who would have thought God's saving grace would look like this?





This past week I observed ("celebrated" isn't quite the appropriate word) Ash Wednesday for the second time. I began a day of surprising solemnity and introspection with a 6:30 am church service in the Episcopalian tradition. The liturgy was read, and--perhaps most meaningfully--communion was taken. We take communion weekly, so I expected it, but there is still something remarkably surreal and haunting about remembering Christ's death while being told that I am dust and to dust I will return. But that is what I am. I am but dust, a fleeting moment. Heidegger, in his Introduction to Metaphysics asks, "...what is a human lifespan amid millions of years? Barely a move of the secondhand, a breath. Within beings as a whole there is no justification to be found for emphasizing precisely this being that is called the human being and among which we ourselves happen to belong." Taking some creative interpretive liberties, I am quieted by this call to understand transience. I am a move of the secondhand, a breath. I cannot justify myself. I exist in a non-human construct, for I did not make myself.


Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm:

"Brace yourself like a man;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.

"Would you discredit my justice?
Would you condemn me to justify yourself?

Do you have an arm like God's,
and can your voice thunder like his?" (Job 40:6-9)


No. To all of the above, a roaring NO! I am but dust, and to dust I will return! As I walk--weakly, blindly, flailing--the forty days of Lent, the gruesome crucifixion (and glorious Easter!) always in view (though I see but through a veil fleetingly), my head is caught between hanging low in deserved shame and staring upwards in joyful hope.

Jesus, return to us soon! We pieces of dust have been blown around in the winds of sin and narcissism far too long.