A season of Ashes and Hope

As a church, we are in the season of Lent, and over the next forty days we will travel to the cross with Jesus. When I was a child, I thought this time of year was kind of exhausting. I lived in Minnesota, and the weather was alway cold and dreary. The worship services also felt like laments. The season reminded me of the death that Jesus went through. It was meaningful, but also exhausting...

Lent is still a season that reminds me of human imperfection and mortality. However, this season is also about hope. In the Bible, Genesis 3:19 says, "For you are dust and to dust you shall return." This verse encapsulates much of what the season of Lent is all about. However, the very next verse in the Bible is about hope. Together the verses read:

By the sweat of your brow
    you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,

for dust you are

    and to dust you will return.”

And Adam called his partner Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

Now I hope I'm not going too deep into the weeds with the translation here, but I think something really cool is going on. The word Adam in the original Hebrew is the same as ground and very closely related to the word dust. The name Eve means "life" or even "everlasting life." So originally the test would read something along the lines of:

"You are dust and to dust you shall return. Then the human (or dust of the earth) called his partner Living One, because she would become the mother of all the living...."

If you can follow all of that, the Bible is telling us that we are indeed dust, but when we come together, we find new life. This is the same story that Jesus came to fulfill. Christ wants us to come together as a church. We are all broken individually, but when we gather in Christ name, Jesus is with us.

Today I hope we can open our hearts to the people around us. I hope we can see that we need each other. Instead of finding reasons to divide ourselves, let us open our hearts to the grace that binds us all together.

Peace,

Brian Ward