Ecclesiastics 3:11 NIV He has made everything beautiful in its time; He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of lent in a great number of Christian churches throughout the world. In the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church the priest makes a sign of the cross with ashes on the forehead of each person. According to tradition these are composed of palms burned from the previous year. As he does this the priest says: From dust you came and to dust you shall return.
So how can it be that someone completely consumed in a house or airplane fatality be resurrected on judgment day as promised by the Lord? I was thinking of this and what came to mind was that God is able to find the tiniest piece of dust of our body and make a new and perfect eternal body that is uniquely our own.
After all we began as a single fertilized cell the thickness of a strand of hair. And in a process that totally astounds the mind, we became a person who would live and die and go back to dust or ashes and as promised be resurrected and live forever.
Ashes are a perfect way to begin the forty day journey to Easter and be reminded of our destination which is eternity.
DJ Pasternak, Author 