From Dust To Dust
From Dust To Dust
Genesis 3:19
19By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.
“It’s clean dirt.” That’s the phrase my mother used when I would come in from the field. She would say, “How did you get so dirty? It must not have been easy. But it’s okay. It’s clean dirt.” Of course, what she meant to say was to get dirty from working in the field was good, and therefore, clean dirt; farm dirt.
I don’t know if Louis ever used a term like that. But I do know that he was a farmer, a worker of the dirt. He loved farming. From, beginning to the end he would think in terms of farming. We probably don’t think too much about it, but, farming is the result of God’s curse on the land, the result of sin. Listen to God speaking to His fallen creature Adam after the first sin: “Cursed is the ground because you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” How it must have grieved God to have to say those words.
You see, when he stooped out of His heaven into His new creation to form the body of the first man from the dust of the ground, it was indeed, clean dirt. There was no sin. When He pressed his lips over the mouth and nose of his human creature, the breath of life was breathed into the man, and, as Scripture says, “he (the man) became a “nephesh hayah” a living soul.” And that man was clean, even though formed from the dirt.
Such a high and holy existence would soon be ruined. Adam, the responsible head of the first family, followed his wife into rebellion against God’s Word and they were stripped of their holy and righteous gift of life from God. Then they knew they were dirty and fully exposed before their Creator. The good they had known with God, was now gone. Their hearts filled with fear and anxiety over God’s presence. But God still desired an eternal union between himself and the foremost object of his good creation, man. He had already predetermined the remedy for sin that would bring all people back to a right relationship with himself. He would send His own Son into human flesh.
Okay! Some of you might be asking about now, “Why I am spending time on this gnarly theological information, considering that this is a funeral service? The reason is this. It is not humanly possible to understand our humanity, or our God, correctly without it. Not to have it would leave us stuck in the ruinous mud of our own deceptive understanding of life and death, heaven and hell, God and man. Only the truth of God’s Word works to rescue us from our dirty, sinful, existence that we all receive from the first man, Adam.
That, then, has everything to do with our departed friend and fellow professed believer in the Lord Jesus Christ? Like everyone conceived of man, Louis, bore the image of a human nature infected and made putrid to God, by sin. And, the wages of sin, God tells us, is death.
But, because of the holy desires of God for his creatures, the sinner is washed and cleansed and reunited to his God in true righteousness and holiness. How does it happen? It happens through the promise of God in Holy Baptism, that is, “the forgiveness of your sins. … the gift of the Holy Spirit,” as Peter says in Acts chapter two. Those two things actually come as one package. It is the Holy Spirit who works faith in human hearts through God’s written Word. And that faith God writes down in His record as our righteousness.
We all need that righteousness, that forgiveness, that Spirit of the Living, Loving, and Holy God. And that is what we have in Jesus Christ.
None of this, of course, means anything if it cannot be applied to real life. In real life we are responsible for some of the most damning thoughts, words, and deeds, imaginable to man. In real life Louis was no puritanical saint. But, in real life, Louis was also loved by God, forgiven, and given the promise. How do I know that? The only way to know such things is through the Word of God. It says, “because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”
The point is this. If we consider ourselves rightly, there is not one of us who is worthy of what God gives to us by way of a promise. Louis could be lauded and praised for many things he did and didn’t do. For example, he considered every day Father’s Day, a day of being honored by his children. Even so, he did not consider himself a permanent resident of this world. On the other hand, Louis could also be scorned for many things he did and didn’t do. Shortcoming and failure is common to all humanity. But, the most important aspect of human life is not our accomplishments or failures. The most important thing in life, real life, is what God has accomplished for us, in Jesus Christ. And that is something Louie had received by way of God’s promise.
To be baptized into Christ is to have put on Christ. It is a rebirth in the image and likeness of God. That means that in real life and in real time, the breath of life moves us forward into a whole new world and reality. It is a world where God Himself takes us by the hand and leads us through every real aspect of human life; a reality where mercy and grace abound and make it possible for us to move forward in our relationships, and our dreams of a better, more fulfilling life. It is the reality of restoration to God’s Good Creation and a return to clean dirt. What this all means is this: death is overcome by life; His Life in us!
When I spoke with Louis, I spoke to a real human being with real human frailty and failure tucked under his belt. But I also spoke with a human being who had been touched by that real life that exists only in Christ Jesus. Only in the cross of Christ is there the reality of reunion with our God, and an eternal return to clean dirt. Listen to how our God would have us to understand it. “God made him (Jesus) who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” Yes, the truth is this: “God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Therein is hope. So when I say, From Dust To Dust, I am saying that we come full circle in life by the undeserved love of our Creator. Made from clean dirt man muddied himself and the whole world. But God sent another man, Christ Jesus, to take upon himself our muddied humanity and restore it to the clean dirt from which he started. In Christ Jesus we are assured of going full circle, From Dust to Dust. Amen.
Louis Charles Katterman.
Born of human flesh April 30, 1926.
Reborn of the Spirit in Holy Baptism June 13, 1926.
Departed in the faith July 7, 1999.