• Death and Dying,  Scholarship,  Scripture

    Creation, Fall, and Dust-made Man: Part 1

    July 2, 2019

    Part of my thesis focused on the creation of man from dust, and the curse that Adam and Eve received when they sinned—the promise that they would return to dust. I’m sharing adapted pieces of that study here with you in a two part series, Part 1 focuses on Creation, and Part 2 on the Fall. I don’t think I’m saying much that’s new here—at least I hope not. Church fathers and modern commentators alike all have similar things to say. But hopefully I can present it in a way that’s new to some of you, as a helpful reminder of our relationship to our Creator.

    Most of us who have been raised in church are familiar with God’s role in the beginning of the world as we know it: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”[1] In Genesis 1, the author (commonly thought to be Moses) uses repetitive sentences to tell how the world came to be. The phrase “Let there be…” is repeated on nearly every day of creation, with breaks in the pattern coming only when God is adding a new creation to something already created (i.e. “let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures”).[2]

    The pattern only breaks altogether with the creation of man in Genesis 1:26. Instead of “Let there be,” the author says “Let us make.” In the Genesis 2, more poetic telling, the creation of man is even more distinct from the rest of creation. Here, all that is said about the creation of the heavens and the earth is that “they were created.” But we are told of man that “the LORD God formed the man of dust, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and [he] became a living creature.”[3] 

    Instead of simply being created with a mere word, God “forms” man. This is remarkably intimate, compared to the rest of the created order. And while his intimacy with God through his formation shows man’s dignity and stature, his origin was of the dust. This seems to be the model for right relation to God. God made a fundamental humility implicit in man’s design, and yet he is imbued with dignity by the care of and nearness to his Creator. This, then, seems to be the balance that man seems to be meant to hold in his regard for his body. The disruption of this balance seems to have occurred at the Fall, which caused a break in the relationship between God and Man. Fittingly, then, Adam and Eve were promised a return to dust: Adam, particularly, because he was formed from it.[4]

    Genesis 2 gives a more detailed explanation of the dust that made Adam a basically humble creature. He was created outside of the garden, in a place that seems to have been barren. The passage states, “when no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up…then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground.”[5]The author of Genesis gives two reasons for the absence of plant growth in this region. First, the ground had not yet been rained on. Second, “there was no man to work the ground.”[6]By this description, the land seems to be lacking both the natural qualities needed to grow plants, and the secondary requirement of someone to tend the land. It was infertile and of no use. The dust that man was formed from, then, was worthless.

    The author of Genesis seems to go out of his way to make sure his audience understood that it is God who was withholding fertility from this land, solidifying the contrast between creation and creator. It was not simply that it had not yet rained, but that God himself “had not caused it to rain on the land.”[7]The second reason given for its infertility was also because of God’s inaction. As the creator, God is the responsible party when it comes to things existing or not existing in every place and time. And here, there was no man to work the ground. Why? Because God has not created one. This is an example of God’s control over life and death—there is no life where God does not act. 

    Additionally, we see in the creation account of Genesis 2 that even when God created man out of barren soil, he did not intend for him to work that ground, but to tend the ground in Eden: “And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.”[8]Yahweh placed man in a garden full of everything he would need, including, eventually, companionship. It was there, in the place that God had provided for Adam and Eve, that he was to tend and keep the land. God’s care for man indicates that even though he was made of dust, he related to God in a uniquely intimate way among the rest of creation. 

    Remarkable, isn’t it? Made of dust, formed in the image of God. What a beautiful tension we hold in our bodies. But it’s easy to see how Adam and Eve fell, isn’t it? It’s not an easy balance to maintain—we either puff ourselves up and inflate our value, or we beat ourselves down and let the “dust” of our nature take precedence without recalling the dignity given to us by our Creator.

    In Part 2 we can talk more about this, and what role I think this tension may have played in the Fall.

    [1]Gen 1:1

    [2]Gen 1:20

    [3]Gen 2:7

    [4]Gen 3:19

    [5]Gen 2:5–7

    [6]Gen 2:5

    [7]Gen 2:5

    [8]Gen 2:8–9a

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  • Scripture

    Man of Sorrows, Man of Dust

    April 18, 2019

    We’ve had a lot of time to think about dust and ash this week, haven’t we? The great loss at Notre Dame de Paris, the hours of televised burning and a centuries-old building turning to ash, is a good reason to think about dust and ashes. And then here we are in Holy Week. This is the week where we Christians remember the death of our embodied God, and celebrate his wondrous resurrection.

    Holy Week provides us with the perfect opportunity to examine and meditate on just what it means for us to be made of dust. Not in a biological and physical way, but what it should mean to us in a spiritual, emotional way. It’s a chance for us to understand what it means for our daily life.

    Jesus was, after all, man. Jesus, the everlasting Word, who separated light from dark, land from sea, and created every sentient and non-sentient thing, become flesh. He became dust. 

    And this is what we remember on Good Friday. We remember Philippians 2: 

    “…though [Christ] was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”


    In this, Christ is an example for every human who ever has or ever will walk the face of the planet. He emptied himself of his divine form (note: I do not mean that he emptied himself of his divinity, but merely the form) and took the form of a man of dust. And as a man of dust, what was his posture? He was humble. He was obedient. He was the supreme example of how dust-made man should relate to God.

    Jesus stands in contrast to the Israelites when they worshipped the dusty work of their own dusty hands, to the citizens of Babel when they sought to a name for themselves and chose to protect themselves with dust-made bricks of dust instead of trusting God, and to Pharaoh, when he stood in rebellion to God, sought equality with God, and refused to bend his knee to his power. Jesus was not defiant in his human frailty, but humbly trusted himself to the will of his Father (Luke 22:42). Abraham, Job, and Hannah show us how this sort of humility looks in the lives of humans who were made in God’s image but had no divine form to give up. They did not strive for positioning with God, or defy him, but were comforted by him in their dusty humanity, recognizing that their frailty was paired with the possibility of near relationship with their creator. They relied on him, not themselves, and humbled themselves to his power over life and death. And, though they were not brought into the glory that only belongs to Christ, they were met by God and drawn into near relationship with him. Their responses to being made of dust then, were appropriate, and they mirrored Christ’s.

    So let’s linger with this thought for the last few days of Holy Week. Let’s remember Christ’s humility in taking the form of a man of dust. Can you believe it? That he would not only take on the form of a servant, but take his obedience even to the point that he would die, like every other man? And let’s mourn that it was our sin that made it necessary for him to humble himself to this point. He did not deserve to be degraded to the point of becoming a man of dust, taking it on so completely that he would die. Man of Sorrows, indeed. 

    He became dust. Willingly. Intentionally. Lovingly.

    But Hallelujah, what a Savior! It wasn’t the end of his story.

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  • Death and Dying,  Scholarship

    Beginnings

    March 11, 2019

    If you’ve read my About the Blog page, you saw that I wrote my thesis on a topic related to death and dying, particularly as it pertains to the Christian. I started this blog as a way to keep myself motivated to continue studying, so I wanted to tell you a little more about my thesis work and where I’m thinking my research will take me—or us, if you come along with me here on The Unhurried Chase (don’t forget to subscribe!). 

    My thesis title was “I Am But Dust And Ashes”: Pride, Humility, and the Appropriate Response to Man’s Creation.” It was my attempt to understand what being made of dust means for man’s life and relationship with God. At the start of the writing process, I was interested in human decay. At most Christian funerals the primary focus is the resurrection, and the abundant life in heaven. To understate it, this is a good thing. But, why, if God intended our sole focus to be the risen body and the eternity to come, do human bodies decay at all—surely we would miss our loved one just as much if they evaporated into thin air at death. My thesis, I thought, would be a good chance to learn what we might be missing by speeding so quickly past this disconcerting part of human life.

    After some preliminary research, it became clear the root of all of these questions was what scripture has to say about man’s creation from dust. All other questions about funeral practices, and grief, and dismissive sympathy cards are downstream from this question—what can we learn from scripture about man’s creation from dust and its implications for mankind?

    I started, fittingly, with creation. I undertook a close reading of Genesis 1–3, trying to understand what is being communicated to readers regarding Adam’s creation from dust, and subsequent exile and death. Three things came into focus through this reading: first, the dust that man was formed from was lowly, barren, and worthless; secondly, God formed Adam with special intention; third, man’s creation from dust was an integral part of man’s relation to God. If man’s first sin was pride, as a number of church fathers believed, then Adam and Eve’s move to cover their bodies after their fall could be read as a move of shame and embarrassment to hide any hint of their bodies’ lowly origin from one who was so entirely superior to them. If this reading is accurate, Adam and Eve’s exile was closely tied to their perception of their body of dust. Instead of drawing near to God as they realized the humility intrinsic to their physical bodies, they hid, and God sent them out in exile to the dust from which Adam was created.

    Next, I wanted to see if there were other passages in scripture where man was confronted with dust, and how these passages might relate to what I was seeing in Genesis. I soon realized that dust is a very common image in scripture, and that there was a pattern emerging from the text.

    I saw that in general, dust was used as an image in circumstances when men were prideful, either attempting to mimic God’s creation from dust in an idolatrous way (for example Babel, or the story of the Golden Calf), or directly defying God (as in the case of the Pharaoh of the Exodus), or when circumstances when the people of God were suffering or witnessing judgement (as seen in the stories of Abraham, Job, and Hannah). 

    The second pattern was that in each case God drew near—just as he had sought out Adam and Eve in the garden. 

    The prideful and idolatrous seemed to try to distance themselves from God and his offered relationship. As a result, they were met with the scattering hand of judgement, led to exile and destruction—scattered like chaff before the wind.

    However, the righteous found their lowly origin as a reason to turn to God, and were even comforted by it. Job and Abraham both turned to God for relief or comfort using the phrase, “I who am but dust and ashes.” Hannah, leaving her beloved son in the hands of worthless men, praises the God who creates and raises man from the dust and the ash heap. In each case God was near, and comforted them.

    The only adequate reaction to the realization that one is like chaff in the face of a gale, then, is to seek shelter in the Rock, like Abraham, Job, and Hannah. When man relates to his body of dust humbly and turns to God for comfort and shelter against the gale, he is met with care and comfort. He is not scattered like the proud, but is sustained, held together, and kept near.

    This is the work that we see in the incarnated Son of God, who took on a body of dust in order to undo Adam and Eve’s exile, to gather what had been scattered, and to become the cornerstone of a building made not by human hands, for man’s glory, but a temple made by and for the glory of God.

    So that’s it. That’s a summary of my thesis. What do you think? I’m hoping to adapt portions of it into blog posts or articles to post both here and perhaps publish elsewhere. Let me know if there is anything that you think is particularly worth reading about in more detail.

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