Bible Passage: Psalm 103:13-14
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: February 26, 2023

Bulletin February 26, 2023

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

Some of you may have paid attention to the controversy a couple TV ads caused during the Super Bowl this year.  The ads I’m talking about are the “Jesus Gets Us” ads.  The one ad showed a number of still photos of people in each other’s face yelling angrily.  The point was that people don’t get one another and that brings us into conflict.  The ad then ends with the words “Jesus Gets Us.”  Some Christians were happy that Jesus finally got some attention during the Super Bowl.  Those on the other side criticized Christians for spending $20 million on TV ads when the money might have been used to help people.

I’m not here tonight to debate the merits of the “Jesus Gets Us” campaign. I only bring it up because it raises an interesting question:  Does Jesus get us?  Does our God really understand our condition?  May I say to you that our text for this occasion answers that question.  And the clear answer is, yes, God gets us.  Not only does he get us, but he has Compassion for Dust like us.

David is the writer of this psalm, and in verse 13 he uses a very tender illustration.  He says, As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him. (v. 13)  Dads can’t stand to see their children suffer!  The word David uses for “have compassion” is a word that can also be used for the womb of a mother.  It has the connotation of something deep within a person.  The Greek does a similar thing.  In a Bible class a couple weeks ago we were talking about the Greek word for “have compassion.”  You might remember the word, splanchnidzomai.  “Splanchna” are your innards, your guts.  The idea is that you are moved in your guts.  That’s compassion.

That’s the way dads feel about their children.  You dads know that!  When your child is sick, you would do anything to help them.  If your child is hurt or injured, you literally feel it in your gut.  I once had to unbuckle one of my sons and carry him from our car after a horrible accident.  I wanted to be sick.  

As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him.  This is the way God feels about you!  Why?  What does he see when he looks at us?  Are we sick?  Are we hurt?  What about our condition causes God to feel “compassion”?  David tells us why:  For he knows how we were formed.  He remembers that we are dust.  (v. 14)

God remembers day six of creation week.  He thinks back to when he created the very first human being.  He used dust and dirt.   God did not chisel Adam out of granite.  He did not melt some ore and pour it into a mold and cast Adam out of bronze.  He used dust.  And that dust body was very good!  That body of dust was made alive in the image of God.  Nothing inglorious in that!

But Adam used his dust-body to rebel against God.  Now this body became the tool, the instrument, of insurrection against God.  God told Adam what the consequence of his sin would be for his body,  By the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the soil, for out of it you were taken.  For you are dust, and to dust you shall return. (Genesis 3:19)  And Adam did.  Oh, his body kept ticking for a long time.  930 years!  But then Adam died.  Today his body is a billion particles of dust.

The “sentence of dust” was passed on to Adam’s rebel children.  I am reminded of this every time I stand next to a casket in a graveyard and speak the words of the committal service.  We reach the point in the little service where we say, “We now commit this body to the ground – earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”  And I’ll be honest with you, that is always a profound moment in the service.  To stand next to this box that contains the body of a loved one and admit that they are dust!  It is heart-breaking.  It breaks God’s heart, too.  Remember, he’s a compassionate Father.

God remembers that we are dust.  The question is, do we?  Do we always remember who we are and what we are made of?  I am not chiseled out of granite!  I am not made of some heavenly alloy, sweet and pure.  I am a sinner.  I am dust.  I come from a long line of dust.  My great-grandfather was dust. As was my grandfather and father.  I am dust.  And I am the father of children made of dust.  I cannot, as hard as I try, change that trajectory.  I cannot by will or effort change this one, air-tight law, because it is law spoken by God:  You are dust, and to dust you shall return.  That’s sad.  It broke God’s heart.  So he swung into action.

In the verses just before our text, there is a wonderful phrase David uses.  He says, So powerful is his mercy. (v. 11)  We don’t often think of “powerful mercy.”  Mercy is wanting to help the helpless.  What good is “powerless” mercy?  To look upon the helpless and say, “I wish I could help but I can’t!”  But God’s is a powerful mercy!  He can save dust like you, like me.  He saves us through his Son.  Jesus dies for your sin.

And something very interesting happens when Jesus dies and is buried.  The Bible tells us that his body never began to decay.  Jesus’ body never began that process of “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”  There is what scientists call a “necrobiome” of bacteria inside our bodies that springs into action the moment a person dies.  Immediately upon death, these bacteria begin the process of turning these bodies back to dust.  That process of returning to dust never happened to Jesus!  Why?  He had no sin of his own!  He did not have original sin.  He committed no sin.  The only sin he experienced he “borrowed,” it was sin put upon him; it was ours.  When he died for it, he was done with sin!  He rises again!

Jesus rises again for you.  He does this so that “Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust” are not the last words spoken over my dust!  Jesus gets the last word!  On the last day, when he returns he will say to my dust, “Rise!”  And he will glorify this dust so that I am fit to live in God’s presence eternally!

As Lent begins, we remember that we are dust.  But we also remember that our Savior gets us!  He took on flesh.  He was tempted.  He suffered.  He died.  He rose.  Because he is compassionate.  Because you are dust.  Because he wanted to save this “dust.”

Amen.