February 25, 2004 Job 30:16-19
16 “And now my life ebbs away; days of suffering grip me.
17 Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never rest.
18 In his great power God becomes like clothing to me; he binds me like the neck of my garment.
19 He throws me into the mud, and I am reduced to dust and ashes.
Tonight a highly touted movie called “The Passion” opens up in theaters throughout the world. It is rated “R”, showing with very graphic pictures what happened to Christ in his last moments of life. It is amazing to me from looking at the pictures of this movie how quickly a person can deteriorate. I know of a fifty year old man who went to the hospital with stomach pains and ended up dying within then next week of cancer. He was perfectly healthy up to that point. Then within a week he was dead. The thing about Jesus is that he was born and continued to stay holy. His body would have had no imperfections - no faults. Yet from the sin and scourges of this world, they were able to break down this perfect body and ultimate man into a beaten and bloody shell of a human being. In the end, He looked more like a “worm and not a man.” (Psalm 22) This goes to show how quickly things can take a turn for the worse.
Some of the time - probably more like most of the time - the transition from life to death is more time consuming. Since we are born sinful, we have a nasty habit of deteriorating from the inside out. A cancer on the inside can spread for years and years so that you don’t even know it’s there until you start feeling sick. But by that time it’s too late. Other times some people can carry around a sickness for years. Take for instance an emphasima or bad heart or diabetes or arthritis. The bad thing about these diseases is that they never leave you and there never seems to be any cure. They’re with you when you get up in the morning and go to bed at night. You are reminded of them every day. When they get worse - they can’t help but remind you constantly that you’re on the road to your death. That’s the way life is for some more than others.
Job was most likely the picture of health for many years of his life. Yet that all changed one day when Satan was allowed to use him as a sort of guinea pig - to see if he would remain faithful without the riches and comforts of life. So God’s Word says that, Satan went out from the presence of the LORD and afflicted Job with painful sores from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. Then Job took a piece of broken pottery and scraped himself with it as he sat among the ashes. (Job 2:7-8) I have been allotted months of futility, and nights of misery have been assigned to me. When I lie down I think, ‘How long before I get up?’ The night drags on, and I toss till dawn. 5 My body is clothed with worms and scabs, my skin is broken and festering. (Job 7:3-5) In tonight’s text Job also said,
And now my life ebbs away; days of suffering grip me. Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never rest. In his great power God becomes like clothing to me ; he binds me like the neck of my garment. He throws me into the mud, and I am reduced to dust and ashes.
The words that Job actually uses are that his soul is poured out. It reminds me of what was predicted of Jesus in Psalm 22 when it said that Jesus would be “poured out like water.” Being able to be poured out shows that someone must be pretty weak and malleable at that point. The part that really bit Job was that he couldn’t even rest - couldn’t even sleep through the pain. His night just turned into restless and painful tossing and turning. I thought Matthew Henry had an interesting way of describing what Job was going through when he said,
His skin was black upon him according to vs. 30. The blood settled, and the sores suppurated and by degrees scabbed over, which made his skin look black. Even his garment had its colour changed with the continual running of his boils, and the soft clothing he used to wear had now grown so stiff that all his garments were like his collar. Some think that, among other diseases, Job was ill of a quinsy or swelling in his throat, and that it was this which bound him about like a stiff collar.
Imagine what all of his scabs would do to his clothing - making it all pussy and smelly and disgusting. So it was this constant suffering along with the rejection of his friends and the death of his family that eventually broke Job down. It got to the point that Job said he was reduced to dust and ashes.
Dust and ashes. Those are the key terms that connect this text to our service for tonight, an Ash Wednesday service. I don’t know if this was a cultural term or not, but the very term that Job used was used several times in Genesis. Right after the Fall, God said to Adam, By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Ge 3:19) What a humbling statement that must have been for Adam. Here he may have thought that by eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil that he was going to become like God Almighty, and then God says to him, “you want to know something Adam? You were made from dust. And one day, because of this sin, you will return to dust.”
The concept must have stuck, for this statement wasn’t only for Adam. It was for every one of Adam’s descendants. When Abraham was trying to barter for Sodom and Gomorrah, he humbly said to God - “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city because of five people?” (Ge 18:27-28) Abraham realized that he had not right to talk to God or ask God for anything, for he was only dust. Think about what dust and ashes are. They are light, weightless, and really meaningless parts of our universe. We try to get the dust out of our homes. All it can do is be blown about and make us sneeze or get us sick. It has no solidity to it. You can’t built it into anything. There’s no reason to keep it. It’s completely worthless. That’s how God described us as. Dust and ashes.
It shouldn’t surprise us then, that God used dust and ashes to remind the Israelites of who they were throughout the Scriptures. Jeremiah told the Israelites - O my people, put on sackcloth and roll in ashes; mourn with bitter wailing as for an only son, for suddenly the destroyer will come upon us. (Je 6:26) Jeremiah wasn’t kidding. He really wanted the Israelites to do these things. To physically roll around in ashes and put on sackcloth. Imagine if I put some ashes on the floor up here and had some sackcloth for you to wear this evening. How many of you would say, “I don’t want to soil my new suit! I don’t want to look like an idiot and roll around in a bunch of ashes!” I actually thought about having some ashes available to put on your foreheads when you entered worship. But I thought without much education on the rite, most people would be mad I got their foreheads dirty. Let’s be real about ourselves. We need to pad our pews and heat and air condition our building - basically pamper ourselves just to make sure our attendance doesn’t drop. This concept of putting on sackcloth and rolling in ashes is foreign to us.
The point of the dust and ashes was not just physical - it was spiritual. God wanted to remind the people of who they were. It’s this dust and ashes attitude that God wants out of us. It means to stop thinking to ourselves that God should be happy with us that we are attending church to worship him. Instead, the dust and ashes attitude says, “God I don’t deserve to be in your presence. I don’t deserve anything in your sight. I feel miserable about what I’ve done against you. I would be glad to roll around in ashes and put on some sackcloth - what a reminder to me of what I am!” That’s what God expects out of us. Daniel responded this very way. Chapter 9 says, In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. 3 So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes. Even though he was a statesman in the government, he wasn’t too proud to get his clothes dirty. Jesus said to Korazin and Bethsaida, “Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. (Mt 11:21) Jesus wanted them and us to admit like the Kansas song goes, “all we are is dust in the wind.”
The dust that comes in our household and the ashes of a fire only move by the winds of the air. In the same way, as dust and ashes we realize that we cannot move without the strength of another entity outside ourselves. That entity is God - for Paul told the men of Athens, ‘in him we live and move and have our being.’ (Ac 17:28) When God formed Adam he states that the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (Ge 2:7) The man did not become a living being until he received the breath of life from God Almighty. Therefore, man’s very being and existing comes not from his dust but from the breath within him - the ability to move and do the things that we do on earth. It makes us realize that in and of ourselves, we are no more than toys without batteries and cars without gas. We may look like fun, but without the power source we’re really useless. That’s what God wants us to admit. He wants you to get down in the dirt with Job and say, “I’m nothing but dust and ashes.”
If you want to be honest, it’s hard to say, isn’t it? Our society ultimately despises helpless people - the elderly - the handicapped - the infants - those who can’t defend themselves. We admire the strong and mighty, so who wants to admit they are helpless dust and ashes? The last thing most of us want to do is admit we need help. If you really think about all that man has done - send people to the moon, eliminate diseases, find the genetic code, how can we say we’re just dust? Even God said that “nothing would be impossible” for man at the Tower of Babel. You might look back at your life and think of all that you’ve accomplished - raised children, saved up for retirement, sewed clothing, taught Bible studies, and the thousands of hours you’ve put into work and family and life - to say, “I’m just dust,” doesn’t seem dignified. How can I find any hope, any purpose, any dignity in what I do if I’m “just dust”? Some say, “no, I won’t say I’m just dust, preacher. I’m a man. I’m a woman. I’m able to do anything I set my mind to.”
God has an interesting way of dealing with people like that. Even though Job wasn’t like that, it was as if he allowed Satan to take him by the ears and toss him in the mud head first. When we start getting arrogant, God sends a little reminder your way - sooner or later - a little sickness - a little disease - a little death - and pretty soon, before you’re ready for it - with the wrinkles or the problems you get the harsh reminder - you are dust. It’s as if He’s splashing a little mud on you, throwing your 4x4 into a huge ditch and saying, “how powerful are you now?” All of the sudden you start realizing, “maybe I’m not as high and mighty as I thought I was.”
God’s Word says, the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. (Ps 103:13-14) The purpose in realizing who we are and what we’re made of - is so that we are willing to look to a gracious God for help. God wants us to look to an outside force to give us purpose, give us life, bring us together, and give us an anchor in life. That is found in the person of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul gave one of the greatest testimonies to what this dust and ashes attitude can do for you with faith. There was a point in time where he was going through so much pressure - his life was being threatened, his churches were on the verge of disintegrating, and his own body was undergoing some serious health issues. Yet in the midst of all these trials Paul said,
We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. (2 Co 4:7-12)
Paul declared that the only thing that kept them together during those trials was having Christ inside of Him. It was only proven more when they went through death. The weaker he got, the more powerful he realized God was.
When you truly realize that you’re just dust and ashes - like a jar of clay - you have to look outside of yourself for your strength, your hope, and your joy. That strength isn’t provided in drugs. That joy isn’t found in new stuff. That hope isn’t found in a new medicine. The only sure anchor and hope and joy we can find is in knowing that Jesus Christ died for us and provided us with eternal life through His blood and righteousness. If you’ve ever been through a truly hellish situation, you’ll be the first to admit it. It’s like you get through a situation where you say, “there’s no way I can handle this,” and you can’t. But then you leave it in the Lord’s hands, give up on the situation, and before you know it, you’re through. How does it happen? By the grace of God! You realize that God will take care of it. You remember that God’s in charge. You take comfort that in spite of all the hate, God still loves you. Faith in Christ gives you a solid foundation of knowing that we are forgiven. It’s a sure hope knowing that even when our bodies decay we’re going to heaven, just like the thief on the cross. It’s in God’s Word that we can continually go back to as the winds of philosophy and morality shift from one extreme to another in this chaotic culture we live in. That’s what Christ gives us.
When an ostrich is faced with danger, legend has it that it will stick it’s head in the sand. It’s kind of like when you’re watching a gory movie and a bloody scene comes up - you decide to hide your eyes under the covers. Many people are living life that way. We’ve got friends, neighbors, and thousands of people who are sticking their heads in the sand, putting their heads under the covers. In the sand they’re searching for new inventions, new luxuries, retirement plans, and everything else that the sand can offer. But in the end, they’re failing to look at the simple fact that it’s all dust and ashes. It all blows away with the wind. It’s all bound to perish with time. That’s what Ash Wednesday is about - to remind us of who we are and where we’re headed.
For the next 40 days we’ll be in the Lent Season. Many people will keep their heads in the sand about this as well. With the release of the Passion, many don’t want to see the gory picture of what happened to Christ. Others will watch it, and only think that it is a story about a good man who died a sad death. They won’t see the meaning behind the cross, that we have a God who loved us so much to send His only Son to die for us - in our place. He came to turn us from being mortal ashes who will be eternally burned into holy saints that will escape the fires of Judgment Day. That’s what Lent is about.
I’m glad you came here this Ash Wednesday. I hope this opening to the Lenten Season has opened your eyes to who you really are. Like Job, you are just dust and ashes. You are helpless, floating molecules that only lives and moves in God. But God is not helpless. Through the blood of Christ, God has brought your ashes out of the fire. Through faith in Christ, God has given your seemingly meaningless body hope and purpose in this world. Remember that you’re made of ashes this Wednesday. Remember what happened to your ashes on Good Friday. Then find hope for your ashes on Easter Sunday. Amen.
