Ash Wednesday 2026

THE REV. E. WAYNE ROLLINS

​ Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. 

Today is about death. The words we hear are meant to remind us that we will all one day face death. We must do it ourselves, for ourselves, and sometimes, by ourselves. 

Today is about origins. Genesis tells us that humankind was formed from the dust of the earth. God formed it, and breathed life into it. God then performed the first thoracic surgery, we’re told, and even had anesthesia way back then. We’ve been a bit slow to catch up. 
Clergy say the words we hear today as a reminder when we stand at the graveside. The Book of Common Prayer reads, “all we go down to the dust . . . .” The next phrase contains the “A” word we’re not supposed to say during Lent, except when we are at that graveside, so I’ll translate. “Yet even at the grave we make our song ‘Praise God’.” 

It strikes me that it’s entirely possible that in our clinging to tradition and repeating words written for us centuries ago that we could be missing an important point. After all, we have a lot more practical experience with origins and death than we have with the event the Lenten season tries to prepare us for. 

I want to invite you to consider the words, “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” in a different light. To do that, we have to go back to our last big celebration, even festivities that may have resulted in our need for confession. 

I’m talking about the Incarnation. Not Christmas, as we know it in our culture. Incarnation. Remember the Prologue to John’s Gospel heard on Christmas Day and the Sunday following, “the Word became flesh and lived among us.” 

Flesh. Flesh and blood. Living, breathing, hungry, often weary human flesh. Walking, talking, healing, loving human flesh that is also the embodiment of the divine cosmic Christ, the very activity of God at creation. Perhaps even the very hands that formed humankind in the first place, the Spirit-filled lungs that breathed life into that new creation. 

And then, that divine cosmic Christ becomes the Incarnate One whose coming to us in complete vulnerability creates the way to our salvation. In other words, the Immortal One becomes dust. 

This fulfillment of Isaiah’s words often translated as “I have given you a new name, you are Mine” takes on new meaning when we turn this day upside down and shake new life out of it. That word “Mine” is with a capital M, a proper name according to Jewish scholars, and not a description or a possession.

Maybe we should consider using a capital “D” for dust. For the Incarnate One, the universal, cosmic Christ, invites us into unity as we are joined with him because he joined with us. Remember that you belong to Christ and to Christ you shall return, in all our dustiness.

And for that reason we can set aside the marks of mourning and death because we can approach God in our confession assured that we are loved, and, yes, forgiven. Oh, we’re still going to mark everyone with ashes, because we need to keep reminding ourselves that we all too often resemble dust more than we do glory. But we can come knowing through faith that Love (capital L) invites us to return home because we, Dust, are part of God’s own, Mine. That makes this day about life, new life, forgiven and redeemed life. Life lived in the intimacy of divine love.
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Why, it’s enough to make a preacher want to say the A word during Lent.