EARTH AND DIRT AND YOU

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of this 40 day season of preparation the Church calls Lent. As many of you know, I am not a huge liturgical kind of guy, but this day does hold special significance for me and as I reflect upon it this morning I am reminded of the incredible mystery of God's love and grace for me (and us) in Christ Jesus - love and grace that takes up residence in this very body.

This morning in our Momentum for Life study we were talking about the "E" in DRIVE which stands for Eating and Exercise. We read together Paul's words from 1 Corinthians 6:

"Didn't you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Didn’t you see that you can't live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body" (1 Corinthians 6:18-20, The Message).

Wow - our bodies are dwelling places of the Holy Spirit and the vessels through which Christ's work is accomplished in this world. In another text Paul calls our bodies, "jars of clay." How could this be?

On this day in many traditions, ashes are offered to the faithful and presented to the people of God with these words: "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return. Turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ."

Those words remind me of my origins. I am dust, but oh what precious dust. God has breathed His very life into me, His very Spirit living in me.

Over the past couple of months, this truth has come alive for me through the words of a song by the David Crowder Band called "Wholly Yours" (I have discovered that when God really wants to get my attention God uses a song). The bridge of “Wholly Yours” contains these words:

But the harder I try
The more clearly can I
Feel the depth of our fall
And the weight of it all
And so this might could be
The most impossible thing
Your grandness in me making me clean.

And then concludes with this tag (but oh what a precious tag it is) - I am filled with earth...and dust...and You.

How wonderful, how mysterious, how gracious is that?

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