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DUST, DEATH AND DISCIPLESHIP


Lent is that forty-day period before Easter that many churches have set aside as a time of reflection upon Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and our response to that sacrifice. Lent, basically, is a season of spiritual inventory.

In Genesis 2:4b-7, we read how God created us out of dust.  In Genesis 3:1-19, we read how we will return to that dust.  Physically speaking, our origin and our destination are one and the same – dust!

Do you know that household dust is made up mostly of the discarded skin cells of the occupants of that house?  Sometime, when you’re brave and you can handle a sobering dose of biblical reality, lift up the bedspread from where it touches the floor, get on your hands and knees and stare your mortality square in the face!

Doing so is part of what Lent is all about.  That’s why some people have cross-shaped smears of ashes put on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday.  Those smears are a reminder that we are all returning to dust, which is a rather euphemistic way of saying that we all die.

Why would we want to remind ourselves that we are going to die - actually, more to the point, that we are, even now, in the process of dying?

Back when I was in school, I would receive two basic kinds of assignments.  There were the assignments the teachers would just spring on us, with very little time to work on them, and there were the assignments that were given to us way in advance of their due dates.

Contrary to what you might think, the assignments given to me in advance were the problems.  Why?  Because I thought I had a lot of time.  With the surprise assignments, I knew I had to get started right away or else I wouldn’t finish by the due date.  But with the assignments that had due dates out in the distant future, I wouldn’t get started right away.  I’d think, “I’ve got plenty of time.  I can get serious about this later.”  I did have plenty of time - at the beginning.  The trouble started when I kept thinking that I had plenty of time.  Without reminders, plenty of time shrank to almost no time left before I knew what was happening.  Then I was left scrambling to make up for lost time!

Christians have been given an assignment for the living of their days on earth.  We are to be the ones who bear witness to the reality of forgiveness of sins and new life through faith in Jesus.  The temptation, I believe, is to treat that assignment like I treated those school assignments that were given way in advance, thinking that we have plenty of time to get serious about our discipleship, plenty of time to do what God is calling us to do and plenty of time to honor and glorify God.  During Lent, we remind ourselves that the due date for this assignment known as Christianity grows closer all the time.

You may be thinking, “But what about resurrection?  Resurrection to an eternity spent in God’s presence does not mean that death is not a reality for us.  Notice in that in 1 Corinthians 15:12-26 death is still a factor.  We believe that Jesus has been raised from the dead, not that Jesus never died at all or that he came back to earth in the same exact way as before his crucifixion.  Jesus died - that is as much a part of the Christian proclamation as is “He is risen.”  The kind of lives we now know in this world will come to an end.  We only have a limited amount of time on planet earth as we know it.  There is a due date for this thing called discipleship.

During the season of Lent, may you and I have a renewed sense of urgency for our discipleship!

Blessings,

Pastor Blaik

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