Station 1: Pilate condemns Jesus to die | "Dust" - by Miranda Dupree

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. For dust you are, and to dust you will return...

Here we are, beginning the oddity of Lent—that season so different from the others, the joyous holidays that sprinkle our calendar the rest of the year. This one's not without joy; really, we engage it knowing full well that we're looking forward to the most joyous day of all of them—the day when we celebrate madly that our Jesus has been raised.

But for now, we start here. We start with these words. We start with that peculiar anointing of ashes and oil on our heads, smeared in a shape that boasts more irony than any other I know. We start in repentance, and we start with a reminder that we are dust. What we put on our forehead isn't really that different from what we are ourselves, save one tiny detail: that our dust's been enlivened by the breath of God Himself.

That breath gives us beauty; it gives us will; it gives us telos (purpose). It even gives us voice, the ability to breathe on others. And yet we've used it—we've breathed it—so...grievously.

Was it our voices that cried out on that Friday morning with the vehement Pharisees? "Crucify him! Crucify him!" Was it our shrug that joined with Pilate's in letting the mysterious King be tortured and killed because we were afraid of political angst? "Crucify him! Crucify him!" Was it our hands that nailed him to the cross—that cross that should have been our death? "Crucify him! Crucify him!" Was it our spear that pierced his stilled heart after all was done, our wonder that the Life-Breather had become a breathless corpse—a pile of dust and blood and water? We crucified him... Gosh, I hope it was also our shudder as the Roman centurion realized what had been done: "Surely he was the Son of God!" (Matthew 27:54b, NIV 1984).

How is it that dust with a bit of breath in it can stand up and condemn its Creator? How is it that ashes can deem the One who fashioned the stars deserving of death by crucifixion?

Yet look at what the Lord said to Pilate: "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above" (Jn. 19:11b, NIV).

He let dust condemn Him. He let ashes despise Him. He let the creatures who marred His image tear His flesh and pierce His heart. And He did it so that He could save us.

So here we are, "breathing dust," as C.S. Lewis put it in Perelandra. Ah, what were his words again? "'Look on him, beloved, and love him,' said the first [eldil]. 'He is indeed but breathing dust and a careless touch would unmake him. And in his best thoughts there are such things mingled as, if we thought them, our light would perish. But he is in the body of Maleldil and his sins are forgiven'" (1943, p. 167). The eldil, if you're wondering, is like an angel in the book; and Maleldil is, in that story, Christ.

And we? We're breathing dust. Forgiven, breathing dust. Forgiven because of the cross.

So now what? Now, we kneel. We place that cross in ashes on our foreheads. We wonder; we falter; we stumble; we sing. And somehow, in the midst of it all, we smile, knowing that the dark smear on our brow has become, because of Jesus, not just a glimpse of Roman cruelty but a terror to death itself. We will rise, just like our King has. But let us know, first, the way of the cross. Let us see, first, what it means that we're breathing dust. Let's start here—start by recognizing that dust wasn't supposed to condemn its Creator. But, ah, Grace, you weren't supposed to free us either. What ironies abound when dust meets its Maker...