The Lord God said, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Genesis 3:19

There is a strange little website, called deathclock.com, that has been around for quite a while now. It is a very simple website with a very clear and simple purpose: To predict the exact day that you will die. You go and enter a little information about yourself, and out pops the date. 

When I entered my data this week, and chose their optimistic calculation, I got my answer: March 25, 2055. So, if I take care of myself and avoid accidents, etc., this website predicts that I will live another thirty years. 

Of course, that’s just a guess. And to emphasize that, the exact date actually changes every time you use it. But the point is, of course, that I will die. We all will. Whether it is in 2055 or 2025, it is going to happen. And facing this fact is sometimes a very important thing to do. Even non-Christians have long recognized the importance of doing this. 

There is an ancient practice called “memento mori” from the Latin, “remember that you will die.” It goes back at least to Socrates, who died four centuries before the birth of Christ. 

Remember that you will die. Why? If for no other reason than to bring clarity to your life. And to be grateful for the gift of each new day. Not to take life, or anything, for granted. But to receive it all as a gift, and to make the most of what is given us. 

Remember That You Are Dust 

Yes, what we are doing today is, in some ways, simply a Christian version of this ancient practice. In just a few moments, we will come forward, and have ashes placed on our foreheads, and we hear the words: 

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

These are words that God spoke to Adam after he and Eve first sinned. And these words are a reminder of several things – not just that we will die – but that is certainly one of the things they remind us of. 

No More than 120 Years

There is talk among some these days that, with all our recent medical advances, there may come a day in the near future when we will figure out how to live forever. If that day comes, it will force us Christians to re-assess everything about our faith. But I, for one, don’t believe that day will come. 

With all the medical advances we have seen in recent decades and centuries, people still have not figured out how to live over 120 years. Just as the Lord decided back in Genesis 6:3: 

“My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years.”

And all these many centuries later, with all of our medical advances, this is still the most that anyone has ever lived since the Lord made that decision. 

(There is one woman from France, Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 at the ripe old age of 122. But no one else has made it past 119. God’s words in Genesis still ring true.)

And I don’t see that changing. Not because I am pessimistic. But because I am Christian. And I believe God. And so today, as we receive the imposition of ashes, we remember this life-changing fact: that we will die. 

There is very little that has the power to change how we live our lives more than this simple fact. Because it re-shapes our priorities. We don’t have long to figure out, to get it right. Our day is coming. So now is the time to change our ways. Now is the time, as Christians, to repent, to confess our sin, and to return to the Lord our God. 

A Sign of Repentance

But there is another reason we have ashes placed on our forehead. It is not just to remember our mortality. It is also a sign of our repentance. 

Job and Jonah are two famous people from the Old Testament who use ashes as a sign of repentance. We join with them today in repenting in ashes.

We receive ashes as a way of saying that we are turning from our sin. We are returning to the Lord, our God, who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. 

The Season of Lent

And not just today, of course. Today begins a season of returning – a season of fasting and repentance: Forty days of focusing on how we can change our lives to make them more pleasing to God. 

We give up a little time on Wednesday evenings for worship, and perhaps we give something else up that we enjoy, or we add something to our daily discipline, as a way of remembering what our Lord gave up for us, and as a way of seeking him. We give extra alms, we fast, we pray, we perform additional acts of love and service, not to impress others, but for the sake of our Lord.

The Sign of the Cross

Ashes are placed on our foreheads today as a sign of our repentance, and as a reminder of our mortality. But this simple act has another important meaning. The ashes are placed in the sign of the cross, the cross that we received in our baptisms, when we were marked with the cross of Christ forever. 

These ashes simply re-trace the moment when we died with Christ and were raised as new creations in Christ. These ashes don’t remind us only of our mortality, but of our immortality, for all who were united with Christ through baptism in a death like his will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 

If we have died with Christ, we will also live with him. That is the promise of Romans 6, the promise of our baptism.

And these ashes are traced in this sign not just to remind us that Christ died for us, but to remind us that we have been baptized into his death and resurrection. 

Death, for that reason, has lost its sting. For everyone who believes in Christ, even though they die, will live. So perhaps deathclock.com needs a new name.  Heavenclock.com, or lifeafterdeathclock.com. Because we believe that the day that we die is the day that we live again. And it is a day not to dread, but to embrace. 

Living Is Christ and Dying Is Gain

I love how Paul puts it in his letter to the Philippians: 

“To me, living is Christ and dying is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which I prefer. I am hard pressed between the two: my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better; but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for you.” (Philippians 1:21-24)

This is clearly not a man who would find deathclock.com something to fear. Living is Christ, and dying is gain. For whether we live or whether we die, we are with the Lord. 

Closing 

Yes, today, we remember that we are dust and to dust we shall return. But we do not remember this to terrify us. Instead, it is to acknowledge that death is the consequence of our sin. We don’t ignore that. We face it. We accept it. And we turn from our sin, and confess it, and struggle against it, and repent of it. 

But, ultimately, today, as is true of every day in the church, is a day to thank our God for sending his Son to conquer sin and death on our behalf. And when we receive our cross-shaped ashes today, let us do so with profound gratitude and joy, remembering the gift that Christ was dying to give us, the gift of eternal life with him. Thanks be to God. Amen.