Season of Ashes

"Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” we say at funerals. Why?

Dust makes sense. Human beings are dust animated by the breath of God (Gen. 2:7). Since Adam’s fall, we return to the ground: “you will return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; dust you are, and to dust you will return” (Gen. 3:19). Dead bodies literally disintegrate into the “dust of death” (Ps. 22:15). We move from dust to dust.

In Scripture, rising from dust is resurrection. Abram’s seed is risen dust (Gen. 13:16), the Lord brings up the poor from the dust (1 Sam. 2:8), Baasha is raised from dust to Israel’s throne (1 Kings 16:2), though he soon heads back to where he came from. In mourning, ancient Israelites throw dust on their heads as a symbol of death (Lam. 2:10; Ezek. 27:30) and a plea to the God who wakes those who sleep in dust (Dan. 12:2). In the end, humanity will reach its destiny, burnished into the glorified dust, the gold and gemstones of new Jerusalem (cf. Rev. 21).

But ashes ? Can we make biblical sense of “ashes to ashes” (not a biblical phrase)?

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