On Ash Wednesday, the first day of the liturgical season of Lent, as ashes are placed in the form of a cross of the believer’s forehead, the minister will likely say, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” This phrase is basically a quote from Genesis 3 where God speaks to our first parents. It is a reminder that this life is not all there is and that death is certain.
On the one hand, we in the West live in the midst of a culture of death. We, in America, practice capital punishment, are almost continually at war, and we have snuffed out the lives of some 55 million unborn children since 1973. In Chicago alone, more people have been murdered last year than the numbers of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Our movies and television programs are filled with the scenes of violence and death. Death is everywhere.
On the other hand, death has been so sanitized that we rarely think about it. In the Bronze Age and Iron Age, life expectancy was 33 years of age. In Classical Greece, it was 28. In classical Rome, life expectancy was 20-30 years. In late Medieval England, it was 30 and, as late as 1900, world life expectancy was 31.
All of this is to say that, until very modern times (in 1950, world life expectancy was only 48), people were personally acquainted with death. Nearly every family lost young children, and pestilence, poor health, poor nutrition, and deaths by wars or accidents were common.
Death is further sanitized by people dying in a medical care facility, as opposed to dying at home, funerals being held outside the local church, which was nearly always the norm. Instead, most memorial services are held in a funeral home.
In fact, until the mid-1800s, the families cared for the body, dressed it, prepared it, and held visitation in their homes. Death was personal. Now, it is so far from our daily lives that we rarely think about it until it faces us or until we have a close friend or relative die.
A Russian monk encouraged his disciples to always be aware of death. He felt that, if people had this awareness, it would affect their lives in a significant way. After all, the monk reasoned, if we all are going to stand before God and give an account of our words, thoughts, and deeds, then the personal reality of death just might keep people from committing the worst of sins.
And so, even for children and young people, the middle-aged and the elderly, the words of the minister on Ash Wednesday seem jarring and out of place in our society. “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” No one expects to die anytime soon. One of the common reactions to the death of someone who is critically and gravely ill is almost always, “I thought we would have more time.”
The last time I saw my father alive was on Monday, Sept. 9, 1996. He was at home in Tennessee, in hospice care, and was unresponsive. On Thursday, I received the call that he had died. I wept, even though I knew it was coming. And yet I had planned to see him the following Sunday evening. I thought we had more time. And sometimes it’s just too late.
So, Lent is a reminder to take care of spiritual business before it is too late. To be aware that death comes to all and that it often comes when we least expect it. We are dust and to dust we shall return.
[David Epps is the pastor of the Cathedral of Christ the King, Sharpsburg, GA (www.ctkcec.org). He is the bishop of the Mid-South Diocese which consists of Georgia and Tennessee (www.midsouthdiocese.org) and the Associate Endorser for the Department of the Armed Forces, U. S. Military Chaplains, ICCEC. He may contacted at frepps@ctkcec.org.]
