Promised Treasures: Clay and Dust Joel 2:12–13; 2 Corinthians 5:16—6:2; Matthew 11:20-30

Grace, mercy and peace be with you, from God our Father, who gives us the treasures found in His Word, and our Lord, Jesus Christ, who overcame temptation for us. 

Since we didn’t get a chance to introduce our Midweek Lenten series last Wednesday evening, we’ll do it this morning. 

It’s entitled Promised Treasures, and it’s based on Matthew 13:52: Jesus said to them, “Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.”

This Wednesday evening, we’ll talk about the Promised Treasure of Salt that Keeps. You are the salt of the earth, Jesus said to His disciples, and to us.

The following Wednesday we’ll talk about the Promised Treasure of Water that Renews. To enter the Kingdom of Heaven we must be born anew of water and the Spirit, Jesus told Nicodemus.

Then Wednesday, March 15, we’ll talk about the Promised Treasure of Light in the Darkness. Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”  

Wednesday, March 22, we’ll talk about the Promised Treasure of the Bread of Life. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.

And on our Last Wednesday evening service, we’ll talk about the Promised Treasure of Palms of Victory; and we’ll see the great multitude in Heaven, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, 10and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” 

Today’s theme is a blend of Ash Wednesday and the first Sunday in Lent.

We’ll talk about Jesus overcoming temptation for us, and we’ll talk about repentance, about ashes, dust, and clay, and the promised treasure of renewal. 

In ancient times, ashes were associated with grief and repentance.

Today, and throughout Lent, with the help of God, we grieve over our sin as if covered in ashes; in other words, with sincere sorrow, and true repentance.

We remember how we have reduced ourselves to dust and ashes because of our sinful nature and behavior. 

From dust you came and to dust you shall return, God told Adam and Eve after they turned away from Him.

God created and fashioned Adam from the clay of the earth, and then breathed the gift of His Spirit into him, and the man became a living being, Genesis 2:6 says.

Then from Adam, from his flesh and bone and soul, God created a woman as his dear wife. 

Both man and woman were made in the very image of God. 

How amazing! What started as a lump of clay became two biological, spiritual, living beings, made in the image of God, to live and be happy forever.

How sad that the miracle of their lives would be reduced to two small heaps of ashes, by their terrible choice to doubt their Father and Creator; and to trust and join themselves to their Father’s enemy, the great hater and deceiver, Satan. 

We’ve done no better. We too, have listened to and trusted the deceiver, and have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, as Scriptures says, and as we know even by common sense and natural law. 

We, too, by our sin, have reduced the image of God in us to dust and ashes. 

But thanks be to God, He sent His Son, who did much better than us, saving us from the dust and ashes.

He resisted every temptation, and kept the image of God pure in Him.

Even in the wilderness, after having fasted 40 days, as we heard in our Gospel, even in that weakened state, Jesus didn’t fall for a single of the enemy’s lies. 

Up to that point, the devil had a perfect record; he had never failed to mislead anyone. 

Every person, all humanity, he misled all into sin… until, Jesus of Nazareth came along. 

The devil finally met His match in God’s own Son. In fact, He met His better, and his better by far.

Jesus overcame all temptation; He kept Himself holy with love and pure from sin, so that He could die for our sin, to win our forgiveness, and our life and salvation.

Now, through His Spirit, He has started a reclamation project: us, a project of new life and renewal, a project with a happy and glorious outcome.

As we repent with our hearts and spirits broken, the Holy Spirit remakes us in the waters of Baptism, and brings us back to where we belong, with our Heavenly Father, in His fellowship, a part of His dear family, the Church. This is where we belong, with whom we belong.

Our Old Testament promises, Return to the Lord, your God, for He is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.  

He washes away the dust from our faces, and the ashes from our grieving hearts; and He begins to make us to look and be more like His dear and holy Son.

Now by faith in Him, with His Spirit in ours, we’re lifted from a lost and lonely life of ashes, to a new and loving life of joy.

Now, in Christ, the outcome of our life is not mere dust and ashes, but love and glory everlasting.

The ending of our bodies is not a pile of dust that blows away in the wind, but a recreated, resurrected body, and a soul made holy, and a mind made happy, forever -- the kind of life, and love and joy that our dear Father has always wanted for us.

The devil convinced Adam and Eve they would be so much happier, so much better off without God in their lives. They tried it and they weren’t, things were so much worse without God. 

Thanks be to God, He would send His Son to rescue them, and us.

In Him, every life, every soul, every man, woman and child can be so much more than just a mass of guilt and sin and a pile of dust. 

Jesus has so much more to give us. He commands the gifts and fruit of the Holy Spirit to remake us all.

We all have dust and ashes ahead of us someday, but the blood God’s Son, poured down from the cross to the ground, from which we will rise, has saved us from dust and ashes being our lasting legacy.

The Spirit of God, poured into us through Holy Baptism, has changed our legacy to one of faith and love, a legacy that follows us into eternity, and continues forever in joy without end.

When your life seems gray as ashes, and your soul feels dry as dust, drink deeply, not of the worldly ways of sin, which Jesus has overcome for you, but of godly ways, of grace, and love, and the Gospel.

Breathe in the joy of the Holy Spirit, and leave a trail, of goodness and love.

May God form you and mold you every day like clay, empowering you to overcome temptation, making you wise to resist the devil’s lies… 

… transforming you by His Spirit to be more like His Son, to be the person, the dear and holy child He’s always wanted you to be… and to have the joy of salvation He’s always wanted you to have…

… and finally, to have and abide and rest in His peace which passes understanding, and guards our hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus, who will raise us from the dust, and will remake our bodies and renew our souls, for joy and love everlasting. Amen.

And now as the table is prepared, we sing hymn 422, On My Heart Imprint Your Image.