One day a young boy sat in the pew at church, listening as the pastor preached a strong sermon on the realities of the fall into sin. His eyes grew wider and wider as the pastor‘s voice grew louder and louder while he quoted from Genesis 3:19: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The boy was impressed. Later that same day, the boy’s mother heard a scream from her son’s bedroom. She went running up the stairs and he met her in the hallway. “Mom,” he said with great concern, “do you remember that the pastor said we are dust and to dust we will return? Well, I just looked under my bed – and someone is either coming or going!”
It’s a cute story, but it raises some questions. Which is it – coming or going?
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis chapter 2 tells us that “the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” The man became a perfect creature. God breathed life into him and bestowed His image on him. It was a beautiful act of love that united God and man together in a perfect relationship. It was very good.
But it was too good to last. Man and woman disobeyed God’s command not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve were convinced by Satan that God is holding something back from them. There just have to be other blessings, more information that God is keeping for Himself, and man is being cut out of something really good. Remember the words of the snake? “Did God actually say … you will not surely die …” Eve was convinced, and Adam was too, that there was something really important that God was not sharing. So they took the fruit. They ate it. And their eyes were opened wide – in sheer terror.
Now they knew – now they understood – but what they knew and understood wasn’t what they were expecting. They learned about death, and they would know the curse. They learned that the image of God had been forfeited and that the breath of life is fleeting. They will suffer death, and they will return to the dust from which they came. “You are dust, and to dust you shall return,” God told them. Nothing could be worse, nothing could be more devastating, nothing could be more final, for they lost the image of God and destroyed their relationship with Him. And they would die. “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
But God is gracious, and God is merciful, and God is love, and because of who He is, He makes a promise. God promises to raise up from the dust once again. God promises to restore life and restore the image. God promises that a Messiah will be delivered to mankind through the woman’s seed. God promises that this Messiah will do battle with the evil one and that Satan will be condemned to the dust of defeat. God promises – and the great battle begins!
So welcome to the war, my Christian friends, for the pain and suffering of this battle have long been taking their toll on all of us. Every living being since the days of Adam and Eve has toiled with the reality of sin and the devastation in brings. Every day we feel the knife of sin as it cuts through our bodies with sickness and disease. Every day we experience the gnawing of sin as it tears at our hearts and our souls. Every day we feel the darkness of sin as it chokes us off from God. Satan, the world and our sinful flesh separate us from God and work overtime to make sure that this division becomes permanent.
As Daniel tells us, this time of trouble is like no other. This is the greatest distress – it is the most devastating reality – and even though man is ultimately responsible for what is taking place, there is absolutely nothing we can do to hold up against the attacks. In fact, Scripture tells us that if God had not cut this time short, no one would survive. This is our life; this is the reality to which we have been brought by sin. Look around: war, hunger, genocide, homicide, abortion, hatred, anger, broken relationships, behavior that shows absolutely no signs of a relationship once shared with God our Creator. A time of trouble like this has never been before. But all is not lost. All is not without hope. Remember: There was a promise.
Into the midst of this terrible battle, God sends His Son. God sends His only-begotten Son into our flesh that he might do battle on our behalf. Jesus has come to deliver us from sin, death and the power of the devil. He comes into our world, to walk in the dust and destruction of our battle, to do what we cannot do. Jesus fights for us – not with us – but for us, in our place. Jesus fights for us, taking the battle to the hill of Calvary. There he sheds His blood as a holy sacrifice for our sin. There He pours out His life. There he dies.
Jesus is taken from the cross and placed into the tomb. He is buried into the dust of this earth in death – a death that is our doing. Jesus is buried in death – but not for long! After three days, He wins victory by rising from the dead. He is the firstfruits of those who rise from the dead, for truly, He is the one who overcomes the curse. Out of the dust he brings life.
The grace-filled reality for us is this: because he has risen from the dead, we shall rise from the dead, too! Jesus’ victory is our victory – for He has fulfilled God’s promise, He has delivered us from sin and death. He has written our names in the Book of Life. Daniel tells us that our names are, indeed, recorded – we who are wise by faith, we who have been clothed in Christ’s righteousness.
This is the promise fulfilled as written in the Book of Daniel. Out of the dust, God will raise the dead. Those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake on the Last Day – awake to God’s promise of a bodily resurrection. Believers – those whose names have been written in the Book of Life – will awake to everlasting life to shine like stars forever with Jesus in our glorified, perfect and holy bodies. Unbelievers – those who reject Him who saves – shall awake to shame and contempt to suffer everlasting death with Satan and his evil angels.
A return to Eden will be accomplished. On the Last Day, God finishes His work of re-creating this fallen world. Out of the dust of death He brings forth life. And we, His new creation, live in this life from everlasting to everlasting. For on the Last Day, He who created us out of the dust will re-create us, raising each and every one of us from the dust. And we live forever, united with God as He always intended it to be from the very creation of the universe.
Thomas Jefferson – the same Thomas Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Independence and later served as the third President of the United States – once published his own edition of the Bible, and in that edition he edited out all references to miracles and other occurrences that he thought were simply unbelievable. If he couldn’t understand something – if he couldn’t believe that something written in the Bible could actually take place – then he cut it out. His Bible turned out to be a lot shorter than our Bible. He ends his book – his own carefully edited version of Holy Scripture – with these words: “There laid they Jesus, and rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher, and departed.”
That’s it. That’s it? That’s how it ends? No, thank God! On the third day the tomb was empty. Jesus rose from the dead, and so shall we. He who has risen from the dust of death will raise up us and all believers of all ages to everlasting life with Him. As we read in our Old Testament reading from Daniel chapter 12: “And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” In Jesus’ name. Amen.
This sermon was generously adapted from Concordia Pulpit Resources.
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