From Dust to Life: Being Recreated In Christ
Rev. John delivered the following talk during the first of our Lenten Lunches, a series of community gatherings held every Thursday throughout Lent. To find out more about the event, including how to register, click here.
When we were at Ministerial a few weeks ago we were bantering about themes for this year’s Lenten Lunch series. Now although we kind of stick ‘loosely’ to these themes, it is nice to have something that provides a throughline to connect our thoughts from week to week. So, we eventually agreed on this general theme:
From Dust to Life: Being Recreated in Christ.
Since I am the first speaker in the series, I’ve been joking that I’ve been assigned the role of being the “Dusty” one. I’ve spent the past 30 years working with teenagers and if you weren’t aware, being dusty has a pretty negative connotation that refers to a man, usually an old man, who is a bit - okay, a lot - sketchy. So, I definitely drew the short straw today.
As the first speaker, the dust that I will be speaking of is the dust that we all are, the dust that God breathed into and gave life and the dust that we will return to when we pass through these mortal bodies of ours.
Rev. Ann gets to be the last speaker and she doesn’t have to talk about being dusty at all. She’s the radiant one and gets to speak on the gift of redemption, the resurrection and our spiritual radiance. You know, the happy stuff. So, I guess, I’m the dark; she’s the light.
That journey, from dark to light, is at the very heart of Lent, isn’t it? We cannot speak of light without first acknowledging the darkness. We cannot speak of resurrection without first facing the dust. So, for my talk today, I’m going to set the stage for the five weeks ahead and take you on a scriptural journey from Genesis to John.
Yesterday, at our Ash Wednesday service, we heard again those sobering words from Genesis:
“For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19)
This is not meant to shame or diminish us. It is meant to ground us in our mortality, our human frailty. Dust is not an insult. It is a reminder of what we are, our origin. Earlier in Genesis we are told:
“Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” (Genesis 2:7)
Dust, by itself, is lifeless but dust touched by the breath of God becomes a living being. To me that breath of God, the spirit that animates us, is what it means to be formed in the image of God. Given life by the breath of God.
That moment, when God breathes us alive, is where Lent begins. It is where we begin. We are fragile. We are finite. We are not self-made. We are not self-sustaining. We are but dust.
We are the dust that God chooses to breathe into - that God chooses to give life to.
The prophet Ezekiel gives us that extraordinary vision of the valley of dry bones. The bones are scattered, disconnected, lifeless. And God asks, “Can these bones live?” (Ezekiel 37:3). The answer seems obvious — of course not. Bones do not live.
And yet when (again) God breathes — when the Spirit moves — bone comes to bone, sinew to sinew, flesh to flesh. Breath enters them, and they stand. Just as we remember from that impossible to forget Spiritual tune, “Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones” are given life.
Lent is not a season of dark and morbid self-reflection. It is a season of waiting for breath. Of hope, of knowing that we are in process, God’s process.
We journey with Christ toward the cross not because we enjoy the solemnity, but because we trust that God does God’s best work in places that look like endings. But looks can be deceiving. Lent is the journey to new beginnings for we don’t travel to the cross, we travel through the cross.
Which brings us to the New Testament.
In 2 Corinthians, St. Paul writes:
“If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
Notice he does not say, “There will be a new creation someday.” He says there is a new creation. Present tense. Already happening.
Lent is not a performance, an act for a given time noted on a calendar. It is a constant participation throughout our Christian journey. It is just labelled and acknowledged specifically and more intentionally, at this time.
It is not simply “a thing we do every year” — give something up, attend church more regularly, prayer harder, feel slightly more serious than usual. Lent is a spiritual rhythm that, over time, reshapes us. It deepens our faith and our relationship with God.
Every Lent strips away something unnecessary. Every Lent exposes a little more of our ego. Every Lent softens a hard edge.
Every Lent reminds us that we are dust — yes — but dust in the hands of a Creator who breathes in us new life, year to year, moment to moment. In Lent we acknowledge our growth from a child of faith to a maturing understanding of the relationship we have with our God. Every Lent we grow deeper and closer to Christ.
Over the years — over decades — something quiet and holy happens. We begin to recognize patterns of grace. We begin to notice how God has carried us through the past valleys of our life’s experiences. We become more aware of our dependence on God, and yet strangely, more at peace with it.
We start to see ourselves in the Jesus story. That death and resurrection are not just events in the life of Christ. They are patterns in our own lives.
Jesus says in John: “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)
There it is again — dust and life. Burial and growth. Loss and abundance. The Christian journey is not about avoiding the dust. It is about trusting what God does with it.
Each Lent, we return to the same scriptures. We pray familiar prayers. We confess familiar sins. But we are not the same people we were last year. The Spirit has been at work. We have loved and we have lost loved ones. We have failed and been forgiven. We have seen prayers answered — and unanswered.
Through it all, Christ has been faithful. So perhaps I am not just the “dust” speaker after all because dust, in God’s hands, is never the end of the story.
We begin in ashes, yes, but we journey toward an empty tomb.
Here is the quiet miracle: with every passing Lent, we become a little more aware that we are already living in resurrection light. We are being recreated — slowly, patiently, tenderly — into the likeness of Christ.
From dust we were formed.
By breath we were given life.
In Christ we are recreated.
One day, fully and finally, we will stand in the light that never fades but, until then, we walk this Lenten road together — honest about our dust, confident in God’s breath, and hopeful in the promise of resurrection.
For as we know from Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.” (John 11:25)
Amen.