Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

A few days ago, there was an editorial piece in the Washington Post by Minneapolis doctor Craig Bowron. Reflecting on end of life care in America, he argues that people are becoming more and more separated from death as an every day occurrence, and are less and less likely to see it as the natural conclusion to being alive.

Not today.

Today, we “remember that we are dust, and to dust we will return.”

Today, we gather together on Ash Wednesday. Today, we begin Lent, not with a tree and presents, as we begin the season of Christmas. Or with the color red and speaking in tongues, as we remember with Pentecost. No, when we begin Lent, it is with ashes, with dust, and death. We begin Lent by coming as far down from the mountaintop as possible. We begin in the dust. We begin, actually, with a proclamation of our very humanness.

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

Being human, being alive, means that we are mortal. We are not deities, we are not all-good, everlasting, perfectly wonderful beings. We are sinners, we are dust. We need Lent as a time to repent, as a time to call out to God, to cry out for forgiveness, and salvation.

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

But, just as we are reminded of our deep humanity, we are reminded of something else, as well.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ. Who was also human. Truly God and truly human. If we are dust, Christ meets us in the dust. God meets us in our very brokenness, walks among us, gets dusty, too. And not only this, but Christ meets us on the cross. Christ meets us at the very pinnacle of our mortality, in death on a cross.

It is this sign we wear today. Not only one of dust and ash and death, but one of savior, one of God meeting us, loving us, in the most unlikely of place. This is a sign not of death: the end, but death: which is overcome by Christ and leads to salvation.

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

We are dust, but then again, so was Christ.

Amen.

Transfiguration B

I have a confession to make. I love snow. Now, we haven’t seen much of it this winter, but usually by this point in the season, people are tired of snow: the shoveling, the scraping ice off the car, the school delays and work delays… but those are the side-effects of snow, the symptoms, if you will. For me, what I love is the beauty of snow: watching it falling from the sky in big, lazy flakes, or racing out of the clouds in tiny pellets. Snow means skiing, and making snowmen. Snow means curling up in a blanket with a mug of hot chocolate and a good book. Snow means stepping outside early in the morning, and looking at the way the world has been blanketed, quieted, even noisy city streets, all covered with a shiny new layer crystal.

In fact, that is pretty much one of my favorite things about snow: the way it transforms the world. A rusty bench becomes an ice throne. A simple slope becomes a playground. A bare stand of trees, no longer beautiful with spring’s new growth or autumn’s array of colors, is now a shadowy, shiny invitation to adventure.

Yes, snow transforms the world into something new, something different.

Today, we hear of a different kind of transformation, one with its own light, brighter even than sunlight on a snow field. Jesus takes three of the disciples, and they go off and away up a mountain, no one else around, no one else to see what is about to happen. “And he was transfigured before them” Wow. Imagine it: here you are on a walk up the mountain, maybe wondering where you’re going, or what teaching you’ll hear next, when Jesus is changed before your eyes. And then, as you’re trying to figure that out, Elijah and Moses join him, and they start talking with Jesus. And then Peter bravely speaks up: “Let us make three shelters, one for each.” But he doesn’t get a response, because just when things couldn’t get more surprising, a cloud appears, and a voice, proclaiming Jesus, saying, “This is my Son, the Beloved, listen to him!” And then, nothing. No one there but the four who originally came up the mountain. And on the way down, they are told not to tell anyone what they had seen.

That must have been so difficult. For I imagine, that even though the dazzling transfiguration had passed, Moses and Elijah had disappeared, and the echo of God’s voice had faded from their ears, Peter, James, and John were not the same coming down the mountain as when they went up.

The mountain-top experience is often considered one of the hallmarks of faith. People ask the question “When did you experience God?” People describe the moment they came to faith, and so on. But faith is more than glory on the heights. Faith is in the transformation, and is not something that we ourselves decide to do. No, faith, the transformation, is the work of God.

In baptism, we have all been transformed: washed, made new, by the Word of God in the water. When that water touched our head, we were changed: in that moment, we are made children of God, we are promised to God’s care, and our lives, our hearts, are in God’s keeping. And God is with us throughout our lives.

Today, we celebrate the baptism of _________________________. Today, we welcome her into the family of God. When we say together, “We welcome you into the Lord’s family,” we are truly welcoming her into a life of faith, we are celebrating God’s claiming of her as one of God’s own.

Baptism is not a singular event. We do it once, yes, but it isn’t over when the service has ended and the water has dried. Christ comes down the mountain with us. In daily life he is with us. In every moment, we are touched by God’s presence. We shouldn’t say “I was baptized,” as though it happened long ago and is finished now, but “I am baptized,” we are being baptized, being transformed, changed, made new, daily, continually. Not by our own standing on the mountain-top, but by God’s transforming grace and presence: at the top, at the bottom, and on the way up and down again. Like Peter, James, and John, we are awed by meeting Christ. We are awed, humbled, shocked, terrified even, by encounter Christ: Christ who talks to Moses and Elijah, Christ who is proclaimed as God’s son… Christ, who doesn’t stay on the mountain-top. Christ who doesn’t permit us to build tents and temples on the summit, but walks down with us, talks to us, lives with us, and then, meets us at the one place perhaps most opposite the peak: the cross. Because God isn’t found only in the beautiful places. God meets us in all the places where our lives take us: The rusty bench, and the ice throne. The adventuresome woods, and the bare stand of scrubby trees. Christ walks with us, Christ meets us, Christ transforms us. Amen.