The Taste of Dust —An Ash Wednesday Contemplative

Tonight, we join with Christians around the world in beginning the 40-day journey of Lent, a time of prayer, fasting, service, and generosity in preparation for Resurrection Sunday. The 40-days connects with our Lord’s 40 days in the wilderness prior to beginning His ministry.

As we enter prayer now, let us pause to be still, to breath slowly, to center our scattered senses on the Presence of God.

Pause and pray.

Listen to the words of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 40:

A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. ⁴ Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. ⁵ And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” Isaiah 40:3-5

Before we move on, let’s notice our setting.

In the Wilderness.

Try to picture it. The wilderness in Scripture is not a painting or a symbol. It is a real place. Scorching heat pressing against your skin. Air so dry it tightens your chest. Dust lifted by the wind and carried into your mouth. You do not just see it; you taste it. Grit between your teeth. A faint metallic dryness on your tongue. Sand shifting beneath your feet with every step. Long stretches of silence broken only by breath. In the wilderness, the taste of dust is constant. It settles on you. It enters you. You cannot avoid it.

Stay there for a moment.

Pause and reflect.

The prophet Isaiah speaks of preparing the way of the Lord in this Wilderness place. Of leveling the ground. Of making a road through uneven terrain. You can almost see it. Stones being moved. Ruts being filled. Hard ground broken open.

It is this very kind of place that Jesus enters in Luke:

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days. Luke 4:1

Imagine Jesus walking through the Wilderness. The sun rising higher. The light harsh and white. Sweat gathering at His temples. Dust clinging to His legs and ankles. The smell of dry earth warming under the day’s heat.

For Forty days he walked with the Spirit in the Wilderness. 40 days is not poetic when you are hungry. It is slow. Your body grows weaker. Your thoughts grow foggier. Your stomach tightens. Your mouth dries. Your limbs feel frail.

Jesus does not hover above that experience with a kind of supernatural exemption. He feels it. All of it. The ache. The fatigue. The thinness of His strength.

Let your imagination take you on that challenging, weary walk with Jesus in that wilderness together.

Pause and reflect.

When the tempter comes, the offer is not abstract.

“Turn these stones to bread.” (4:3)

When you are starving, bread is not a metaphor. It has weight. Texture. Smell. When all you have tasted for days is dust, grit clinging to your teeth and dryness coating your mouth, bread feels like rescue. You can almost taste it before it is in your hands.

“Take the kingdoms.” (4:6)

When you are worn down, power looks like relief. Like escape. Like a way to avoid the long road.

“Throw yourself down.” (4:9)

Prove who you are. End the uncertainty.

Each temptation is an invitation to bypass the dust. To avoid the slow leveling of the heart. To take a shortcut around trust.

But Jesus remains. He understood the ones formed by God do not bypass the dust. They taste it. They endure it.

Jesus feels the hunger and does not grasp. He feels the weakness and does not prove. He stands on the uneven ground of the past and refuses to build on it.

In that staying, something is happening. The Way, The Way of the Lord is being prepared.

Let us hear the prophet again.

In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. ⁴ Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. ⁵ And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. Isaiah 40:3-5

Tonight, when we hear the words, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return,” we are not being shamed. We are being reminded of what is true.

In the beginning, the Lord God formed humanity from the dust of the ground. Picture that. Divinity reaching into soil. Earth pressed and shaped. And then breath entering what was lifeless.

Dust is not an insult. It is origin. It is the material of creation. It carries the memory of rain and root and decay and growth. It holds what has come before.

I am dust. Formed. Shaped. Influenced by stories older than me. Carrying patterns, wounds, hopes, faith handed down in ways I may not even see.

Take a moment to reflect on some of the ways you have been shaped by what has come before you.

Pause to reflect.

The wilderness has a way of revealing the landscape inside us. Where the ground is high and hard. Where it dips low and shadowed. Where we are tempted to rush ahead. Where we are tired of waiting. It reveals what we are most longing for, and the lengths we might go to grasp it.

If you are in a wilderness of your own tonight, you do not need to escape it. Notice it. The dryness. The restlessness. The desperation for quick relief.

Bring that gently before the Lord. Then, notice his posture towards you. How does he respond?

Pause and pray.

Jesus has walked that ground my friend. He knows the taste of dust. He knows the weight of hunger. He knows the pull of the shortcut. He did not stand at a distance from our fragility. He entered it fully.

And in His staying, in His trust, He began to level a path.

So, when the ashes touch your hand or forehead tonight, feel the faint grit against your skin. Notice the coolness of the oil. The scent of smoke lingering in the air. You may even taste it faintly, a trace of dust on your lips. Receive it as a sign of honesty. You are dust. Mortal. Limited. Dependent.

And also be assured in this: You are dust breathed into by God.

In your hunger. In your fatigue. In your wilderness. He is not absent. He is preparing His way.

He who began a good work in you, is faithful to complete it.

Stay. Remain. Walk the wilderness path with Jesus at your side. Let Him work the ground. Renewing what is dry, lifting what is low, bringing low what seems impossible to climb. For he is with you.

Amen.