Ash Wednesday Meditation: The Wages of Sin

By David Lindberg, March 2, 2022.

"By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Genesis 3:19

"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."  Romans 6:23

A young person who grew up in a strict Islamic context heard the good news of the gospel and converted to the way of Jesus. Upon their conversion this young person was asked, by someone instrumental in the process, if they understood the weight of their upcoming baptism. Did they really understand the implications and possible consequences of their public declaration of faith in and union with Christ? 

I was not present for this conversation, but the repeated stories I have heard of it will always be with me. This very young adult, in the presence of a couple with years of Christian ministry experience, demonstrated an understanding of public faith and repentance—and the eternal weight of it all—with a depth that I have not seen in many others (myself included). Upon being pressed as to whether or not they understood the implications and possible consequences of public allegiance to Jesus, they simply said (paraphrasing): “Oh, of course I understand the implications and the risk! This could mean my death. Especially if I ever go home! But death doesn’t scare me the way it does Westerners. I grew up seeing death in the streets every day. I’ve been exposed to death my whole life. I know that following Jesus might mean death, but He is worth it!” 

God promised that the consequences of breaking trust in him—severing covenant union with Him through disobedience—would be death (Gen. 2:16-17). And it was. As the Apostle Paul put it, "the wages of sin is death."  

Adam and Eve sinned and death entered the world. Now, as the majority of Christians around the world are reminded on Ash Wednesday, we are all destined to return to the dust from which we came (Genesis 3:19), a reality that didn’t take long to infest humanity. If you read the early chapters of Genesis you see how quickly things spiralled out of control as the once “very good” creation was plunged into an arena of death—both spiritual and physical—as sin spread like the cloud and darkness of a Dementor, bringing with it violence, suffering, and decay (Genesis 4-5). (I should note: when I first wrote this, Russia had not yet attacked Ukraine, but I thought such a visceral expression of death, and the suffering of those who are victims, had to be acknowledged. Let me just say that war–especially war started through unprovoked aggression–is one of the more blatantly horrific expressions of the violence and suffering brought on by sin, both for those upon whom such violence is thrust, and for those who must witness it without direct recourse to achieve peace.) 

Because of Adam and Eve’s choice to eat of the tree of knowledge, sin now reigns in our hearts and death lays claim to our bodies. None of us can escape it, try as we may. Our fear of, distaste for, and general inexperience with (proximity to) death is not hard to prove. Even after a two year pandemic! 

The hope of modern medicine, despite its many honorable intentions and temporary successes, is not merely to prolong life but to stave off death at all costs. There are, however, some sad exceptions to this rule, cases in which death is seen as an ally so long as its horror can be minimized and/or excused under the guise of mercy. However, even these exceptions (e.g. abortion and euthanasia) are outward expressions of sinfully rebellious hearts (sometimes more or less overt) that are bent on taking God’s place as masters over death, which is in its own way an avoidance of death’s real sting. We don’t want to face the reality of death, so we seek to avoid it or rule over it. Both are a losing battle, and we would be better served to acknowledge our finitude. 

We avoid having to come face to face with death, as is so often demonstrated in either the lack of a casket at all—or a closed casket at best—when we gather to mourn the death of a loved one. This isn’t just a practice among those outside of Christianity. In some ways Christians are just as bad, if not worse. We do not gather for funerals any more, but “celebrations of life.” Okay, fine. I am all for celebrating the life of grandma, uncle Joe, or your best friend. We should do this. However, it would do us well to not miss the opportunity to viscerally mark their death, through viewings and/or open caskets, and therefore be reminded of our own mortality and that of everyone around us. We need, and our children need, to be reminded of the fact that, as God said to Adam, “from dust you were created, and to dust you will return.” We need to be mentored, as persons and as communities, in the unavoidable truth that “the wages of sin is death” because if we fail to grasp and accept this hard truth we cannot really celebrate life. 

Without acknowledging the real and unavoidable sting of death—and the threat of the total removal of God’s loving presence—we cannot celebrate the eternal hope of the gospel. The very thing that we as Christians are supposed to be all about. If we avoid the sad reality of death, we miss the opportunity to face the truth of our own sin and death’s reign through it; avoidance of these twin tyrants means the impossibility of experiencing the real hope and freedom that in the Second Adam (Jesus) there is an overflow of grace for those who receive the gift of righteousness through faith in him. Eternal celebration of life comes when we accept the present reality of sin and death, knowing that what is set before us is the eternal hope that we will one day “reign in life” in and through Jesus (Romans 5:17)—the one who conquered sin and death—and that we will once again find our home in the perfect presence of a loving God (Revelation 21-22)! 

Westerners like to avoid death (and all suffering), and nearly all of contemporary society (Christians included) likes to think that we can rule over it. Ash Wednesday, and the rest of the Lenten season, is an opportunity to be reminded that this is a fool's errand. Sin has spread, and will continue to spread through all of creation, until Christ returns; as a result, death will continue to reign until the last day, but we do not face this reality without hope because we know that our struggling, mourning, and suffering will be turned to joy on the day of resurrection. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, and the dark note of death’s haunting presence, but it ends with resurrection on Easter Sunday when we are all reminded that death will not get the last word. 

For those who are in Jesus—the author and giver of life, the founder and perfecter of our faith, and the one who has and will remove the sting of death—there is the promise of eternal life in the loving presence of the Triune God. In the coming weeks we will spend Wednesdays in Lent reflecting on how we begin to taste this goodness now, even while we continue to look forward to that day when such goodness fills the banquet table at which we have been seated.