“By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” That was the curse Adam and Eve received for plucking forbidden fruit from the tree. Because of their sin, their very creation will be undone. They were taken from dust, they are dust, they will return to dust. The curse introduces a paradox to human life: our lives are colored by death. It’s a paradox we wear this evening, dust in the shape of a cross: to live, you must die. Die to live.
Now, this sounds absurd. Die to live? Doesn’t that undermine the entire point of living? No, no, our instinct is to live to live! Maybe subconsciously, we know that “to dust we shall return” but that’s a grim thought that we are more than happy to shove aside. We distract ourselves from our own mortality. We invest in this life as if it’s permanent. We fixate on treasures and security and status: whatever makes our lives feel dust-less. Glitter, not dust! Glitz, gold, pixels, pictures, likes, follows, subscriptions, novelty. We indulge because we are in denial. We don’t want to be dust; we want to glitter.
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal” Jesus says. The glitter is an illusion. Death always has its way. This life is dust. You are dust. Everything you touch will turn to dust. Jesus’s words remind us of a hard truth: our lives are fragile, dependent, temporary. We crave permanency, immortality, a life worth living. Indulging in all that glitters gives our souls a steady diet of junk: things that are not permanent, fulfilling, or life giving, but only things that moth and rust destroy. When Jesus warns us not to store up treasures on earth, we should remember that He knows us better than ourselves and assume that we are guilty of what He warns us not to do. We admit our fragility, our sinfulness. We admit we cannot give life to ourselves by living it up—and we admit that we have tried. We confess our pride, our self-reliance, our materialism. Just as Adam and Eve reached for the forbidden fruit, we are guilty of the same. We put to death the lives we try to live apart from Jesus. Dying to live means repenting, speaking the truth to ourselves: all that glitters does not give life. What gives life is only the One who can give it from the dust.
Throughout the ages, the faithful have practiced fasting. No, not because they were going in for a medical test the next morning. It was a way of denying our sinful denial that we are dust. Fasting is a reminder: true dependence lies not on indulging in glitter, but on God the true life-giver. Fasting was a spiritual dying to yourself to break the destructive cycle of distractions, habits, and comforts that amount to junk food for the soul. Fasting is a way of life. Christians practice the paradox: die to live.
And so, tonight, we wear the paradox: dust smeared on our foreheads. We die to live. But it isn’t just dust: it’s in the shape of a cross. It’s a reminder of God’s life-giving grace. God gave Adam life from the dust. God sent Jesus to die to redeem our lives of dust. To Jesus, your dusty life is not worthless; it is worth dying for. We repent of forbidden fruit and lives of glitter. The treasure is not found by digging through dust; God creates us as His treasure from the dust. Jesus redeems us by taking for Himself our mortality on the cross to give us the gift of His immortality. Die to live. It might be easy to deny death by indulging life, but it’s also easy to deny life by despairing in death. Believing that your life is only dust, giving way to hopelessness, fearing death, believing that your sins are too big to be forgiven, believing that you are not valuable—that’s all a denial of Christ. It’s a denial of His cross. It’s a denial that life is His gift from the dust.
Jesus says, “When you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you” and “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Jesus isn’t saying if you do the right things He’ll reward you. The Christian way of life is believing the reward and heavenly treasure comes as a gift, not something you can buy, earn, or merit. It’s not a transaction. You don’t fast, pray, or love others hoping God will take notice and decide to give you life. Apart from the cross, our lives are nothing more than dust. So we die to the ways that we treat life as if it’s not a gift from God. We die to ourselves and love others, just as Jesus died to Himself to love us. We die to a life of junk food for the soul, and we store up treasure in heaven. We spend our lives on things that matter. We die because we live. Our lives have been redeemed by the cross and have eternal value in Jesus. We return again and again not to the tree of forbidden fruit, but the to the cross as the tree of life. We store up the treasures of Jesus’ forgiveness, Jesus’s robe of righteousness we wear from our baptism, Jesus’s Body and Blood we receive in His Supper. It’s a diet of true life for the soul.
And one day, Jesus promises to undo Adam and Eve’s sin. Instead of your creation being undone, your death will be undone. You are dust, and to dust you shall return, and from the dust you shall return again. Die to live. Die to yourself; die to the glitter and gold; die to indulgence; live to the reward and treasure of God’s gift of life from the dust, live for the treasures of Resurrection promised to you. Wear the paradox of dust and cross. Die to live.
