Given at St Edward’s, Ash Wed 2026
Readings: John 8:1-11, Psalm 51:1-18
Tonight, we are reminded where many funerals end:
Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.
These words, as I am sure many of you know, are spoken at the committal, when a body or ashes are lowered into the ground. They begin as words of grief but finish with words of bold hope. And we hear that same echo tonight. Earth, dust, ashes. From our beginning to our end, and everything in between.
In Genesis we read that humanity is formed from the dust of the earth. God made the earth, the sky, the plants and animals and then, gathered up some of that dust and formed man, breathing life into this being crafted from the earth. Handmade by God from the very molecules of God’s creation. And we are reminded that this is where we return at our end. To the ground, to ash, our beginning and our end united. As we say in this very service, ‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return’.
But we are not yet at that place of return, and not at that sure and certain point of resurrection. We are here in the midst of the mess and muck of life, and the season of Lent invites us to reflect on that. To reflect on what dirt may be clinging to us in the here and now. more than a simple moment of confession that we have on a Sunday morning, Lent gives us sustained time to stop, and to reflect and to think.
Last weekend in that rare few hours of sunshine we went out for a hike in the Surrey hills and there was mud everywhere. We tramped through it, through huge puddles, mud like water, mud up to our ankles, mud all over the dogs and when we got back to the car we were covered. Not just our boots, but our clothes, coats all splashed and marked by the mud, the dirt we had trekked through, and all went in the washing machine when we got back.
That’s the opportunity we have in Lent, to wash away the spiritual dirt and mud that has marked us, stained us, that remains on us and with us, that reaches far beyond where we think it has. And to do so with openness and honesty about our sin.
Psalm 51 gives us this language, a Psalm written after Nathan the prophet points out to King David his sin with Bathsheba, and this is from the MSG version:
Generous in love – God, give grace! Huge in mercy -wipe out my bad record.
Scrub away my guilt, soak out my sins in your laundry. I know how bad I’ve been; my sins are staring me down.
This Psalm is a prayer of repentance. David says to God:
I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight..
He knows what he has done. He sees the dirt and dust clinging to him and asks to be cleansed:
Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. v7
In John’s gospel, as we heard this same link to the dust of the ground. A woman, caught in adultery is brought before a baying crowd, being made an example of, to test Jesus. Publicly humiliated, her sin named before the town, the leaders and before this Rabbi. Can we imagine how that felt?
The pharisees say to Jesus, well come on, the law is clear, we must condemn this woman, what do you say? He does not answer immediately he simply bends down and writes into the dust, into the very ground of his creation. The dust and dirt from which the woman is made, the crowd is made, we are made, the dust beneath their feet, beneath our feet. We do not know what he wrote, but he touches the ground, as he confronts sin, he kneels in the dirt and says,
‘Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’
He will not condemn her.
One by one, the stones drop. One by one, the accusers walk away. The condemnation is gone. She is left standing in the dirt, with her own sin and an encouragement not to do it again. This is repentance (metanoia in Greek) to see our wrong doing and to turn away, to decide not to do it again. This is what Jesus offers us, to cleanse us, not to condemn us, to drop the stones we would throw at ourselves and to walk free. With a clean heart, a right spirit (Psalm 51:10-12) in the words of Ps 51
David pleads, ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God’ using the same word for create as used in Genesis when God created the heavens and the earth. It is the kind of creating only God can do. Repentance opens a space for new creation in our hearts and souls.
We receive ashes tonight as a sign of our sin, of the dirt in our lives, but it is given in the sign of the cross because the cross is what redeems the dirt. At a funeral, when we say, ‘earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust,’ we do not stop there. We say, ‘in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ’. Resurrection brings new life. The same God who formed humanity from dust in the beginning can breathe life into us again. The same Christ who knelt in the dirt and rescued from condemnation, offers us too, liberty.
David goes on, v 12, 15 ‘Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit…’ then he says, he will teach others, he will sing God’s praise,
Ash Wednesday, Lent, are not about causing us to condemn ourselves for weeks on end, in the dirt of our lives. No this is a reminder that the God who made us from the dust of the earth can cleanse us and recreate in us holiness of our hearts. Can wash us clean until we are white as snow. The dust on our foreheads tonight is not just a reminder of where we are going. It is a reminder of whose we are. Formed from the dust of the earth. Redeemed by the One who knelt in the dust. Promised a future beyond the dirt of our lives.
So, as we begin Lent in dirt and in ashes, let us seek Christ who gives us that sure and certain hope of a different future.
Amen
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