Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Genesis 3:19/Ecclesiastes 3:20

These are the words you will hear tomorrow as ashes are put on your forehead or hand in the sign of the cross.

This past week I had an encore performance of COVID. Having to isolate, I was unable to officiate at two funerals this week. The Ash Wednesday words echoed in my head, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

However those are not the words announced at funerals.

As humans we live in finite time, full of hardship and sickness, between birth and death.
As Christians we live in the promise of the eternal.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”
 – John 3:16

So at funerals we announce, “Let us celebrate the life and resurrection of our beloved.”
“When we were baptized in Christ Jesus, we were baptized into his death. We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

See Ash Wednesday is the kick-off to Lent that ends on Easter morning with an empty tomb.

So not only at the end of a funeral, but each and every day…

Marked with The Cross of Christ may we go in peace. Amen.
 
Join us for Ash Wednesday Worship – February 22.
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11 AM and 7 PM, both in person and online: stlukesbloomington.org

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