On The Ground Floor: A Lenten Reflection
It is our very recognition that “we come from dust, and to dust we will return” that opens us up to the fact that God’s love and mercy is also there—on the ground floor—waiting with us, and waiting for us, with open arms and a feast.
This week, we celebrated Ash Wednesday. Through song, prayer, scripture, the sacrament of Communion, and the imposition of ashes, we entered into a sacred space, together. Though this sacred space can be found everywhere God is (which is, of course, everywhere), by participating in worship, our eyes, ears, hearts, and minds were opened to it once again.
As Jarm reminded us in his Ash Wednesday message, God meets us in our places of despair and shame, but He doesn’t stop there—God also welcomes us home. Often, it’s our recognition of our sin and shame that “brings us to our senses” (Luke 15:17) and initiates our decision to (re)turn home.
In other words, it is our very recognition that “we come from dust, and to dust we will return” that opens us up to the fact that God’s love and mercy is also there—on the ground floor—waiting with us, and waiting for us, with open arms and a feast.
Until we begin to see our areas of sin, our fallenness—our dust-ness—more clearly, we may constantly attempt to ignore it or compulsively strive to cover it up. We do all this in order to project a “better” image of ourselves for others, many of whom also happen to be engaging in the same exhausting charade.
But here’s the good news: Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent are not only antidotes to this shame-fueled masquerade we play in an attempt to either hide or prove ourselves—they are invitations to freedom and rest.
We all need to be reminded of this (some of us, constantly): the recognition that we all come from dust does not mean we come from a place of shame. Instead, our rightful place here on the ground, here in the dust, is a place of grace.
To see why, let’s go back to the creation of humankind in Genesis 2:7:
“then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.”
Here, for the first time in scripture, we see that humans were formed from dust. In a bit of ancient wordplay, the Hebrew words for man (adam) and ground (adamah) are related: man is made of the ground. It’s only natural, then, that Adam is the name of the first man.
But it gets far, far better.
In the person ofJesus Christ, God became a man. God took on flesh. God joined us on the ground floor, in the dirt. Jesus took on the dust, not only as “God-with-us” (Emmanuel), so we wouldn’t be alone, but as our rescuer—God-for-us.
As the “second Adam,” Jesus Christ became a man (adam) to do what Adam and every other person after him could not do—overcome our sin and our shame, defeating death, and drawing us up from the ground to be with Him forever.
Maybe this is why we “celebrate” Ash Wednesday and Lent.
-Rob Wooten
(artwork by Walt Wooten)
