genesis 18 on Eternity

I love a British TV show called Time Team. Hosted by Tony Robinson, a team of archeologists descend on a site in Britain and excavate for three days.

Inevitably, the archeologists unearth the dead. It’s pretty common, actually. Burials all across Britain turn up from across its entire history. Watching the show vividly reminds you of the true meaning of, “remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” 

The dead they discover are of every sort: princes, soldiers, monks, lepers, and infants. Death came to them all. Some of the dead are complete skeletons. Others are shattered by years of ploughing. Some are little shards of cremated bone and ash.

For me, the most poignant are those that are now just stains in the soil.

Those have truly returned to the dust. It is not uncommon for the archeologists to scrape the sod away and see the outline of an old grave—just a patch of soil that is colored differently from the rest. As they shave away the layers, there is only darker soil, a tooth, a bone fragment, or an odd trinket that testifies that once a body lay here. Between the weather, microbes, and the soil chemistry, nothing else remains. There is just dust.

Sooner or later (should the Lord tarry), that will be us. 

Remembering this helps us to connect with the themes of mortality we dwell on on Ash Wednesday, at funerals, and when we need people to remember that our life, consequential as it is, is brief, turning to the Lord and making a difference is a matter of urgency.