Lenten Meditation: March 9, 2024
Daily Scripture Passage: Psalms 87 & 90
Before the mountains were brought forth, or the land and the earth were born, from age to age you are God. You turn us back to the dust and say, “Go back, O child of earth.” — Psalm 90:2-3
Ash Wednesday is a holy and humbling experience…to have dirt smeared on your forehead, with a reminder that life is fleeting, that one day you will die. I don’t yet quite grasp the reality of it, even though I try. I am in my early 30’s, reasonably healthy…I know my mortality, but I do not feel it.
Every year, I am amazed by the very elderly people that present themselves to receive their ashes. People who move very slowly and carefully, clearly smaller now than they once were, more delicate. I would imagine mortality feels quite real to them, nothing theoretical about the promise that we return to dust. But they come for the reminder anyway.
I often hear religion referred to as a crutch—nothing but a comfort, a security blanket, and a vaguely ridiculous one at that. The assumption is that faith makes life easier for people who cannot handle the unsentimental truth. When I meet people who feel that way, I assume they have never received ashes on Ash Wednesday.
One of the greatest gifts of the Christian life is the way God is constantly inviting us deeper into life—to see the world as it is, with all its beauty and potential and heartbreak and fragility. God is always inviting us to dare to see the world as God does: to love our neighbors, pray for our enemies, and be the salt and light of the world. And to know that we will die one day–that our time is limited and precious…we are dust. Beloved dust! But dust all the same.