When mighty Pharaoh sat on the throne, the whole world bowed before him. He held in his hands the power of life and death over his subjects. Rich and poor paid him homage. But he grew older. And he died. People no longer honored him. People no longer feared him.
Never again will the mighty Pharaoh lead an army in victory. He will never command again. Of his vast kingdom, only the crumbling columns remain and the choking dust. Pharaoh is a mummy. While his facial features are identifiable, he can neither speak nor move. He is dead.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust!
A man entered a theater just as the play was reaching its climax. The sound from the stage increased in volume and then came the unmistakable report of a revolver. The bullet sped into the body of the man and he fell to the floor. He was carried quickly to a nearby home where those closely associated with him maintained a long vigil. Every medical skill was used in his behalf. But he died. Abraham Lincoln had become a figure of the ages.
The mind that created, the lips that spoke the immortal words, “Fourscore and seven years ago our forefathers …” will never speak again.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust!
Ships had been bombarding the little island in the Pacific. Planes dropped their payloads of destruction and it was zero hour. Men scrambled down the nets onto the LCVPs and LCMs. Wave after wave of the larger landing craft filled with tanks, and supplies headed for the beach. The enemy fought back. Shells exploded. Boats were upended. Steel decks twisted grotesquely. Supplies crashed crazily into the water. Bodies were broken. Men died. They fell on the wet sand in the shallow surf. There was the monotonous slap, slap, slap of the waves.
These men will never fight again. They will never serve their country again. Throughout the world American flags fly from flagpoles set on the flower-bedecked, carefully clipped acres of grass. Dotting the lawns are hundreds of white crosses.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust!
The news told of a skating champion, a vivacious teen-ager. In many years no girl has so captivated the audiences with her winsomeness and flashing skates. She would be a champion of champions. One day she boarded a jet plane in New York City. Flying with her to an international meet were other members of the United States skating team. In Europe the plane was about to land. Suddenly it pitched into a steep dive. It crashed with a sickening exploding sound. Dust filled the air. Then all was silent. Time magazine noted that as it hung from a piece of wreckage glittering in the sun a partly melted twisted skate swayed slowly back and forth in the breeze. The young vivacious champion was dead. No more applause. No more flashing skates this winsome girl would weave. No more intricate figures on the ice. She was dead. The whole team was dead.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
Death On A Cross
Christ was born of a woman. He suffered the human lot of pain, thirst, hunger, discouragement. Then on a Friday afternoon about 3 o’clock from his position nailed to a Cross, he slumped forward. His head drooped to his chest. He was dead. There was no doubt about it. He was dead, dead, dead!
Those hands so white would never bless again. Those eyes now closed would never again see fainting multitudes. “Blessed are they that mourn,” those pale lips had said, “for they shall be comforted. Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. I am the living water.” But now those lips would never speak again!
Soon he would take his place with the dead in the tombs. Time had ended for him.
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust!
But something wonderful, something amazing, happened—something that had never happened before. It occurred the following Sunday morning. The lifeless body moved and cast off its wrappings. Jesus Christ was visibly alive! The silenced lips now spoke again. Those torn hands were lifted anew in blessing. He taught. He blessed. He comforted. He reassured. He was filled with glory.
The hordes of darkness had done their worst. Not only had they humiliated him and caused him great physical pain. They killed him. Indeed they thought they had destroyed him. But he arose. Christ arose. He would never die again! He would live forever!
The disciples had been distressed and discouraged. Now they were energized. So glorious was the fact of Christ’s resurrection they went radiantly into the whole world to tell the amazing news.
The Destiny Of Man
How morbid is death! Man is dust and he is destined to die. Indeed life means nothing alongside this grim fact. The sands of Iwo Jima, a smashed airliner, a broken body punctuate the sad reality of death for all men. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. But somehow the Resurrection of Jesus Christ changes all this.
Emerson could truly call man “Enchanted Dust” because one Person did not return to dust. Man is enchanted dust because of the Resurrection. Christ lived on and he lives now. All men can do likewise through him. A strange unique power is available to men through Christ the Lord.
Richard Halliburton, the famed traveler of a generation ago, wrote a charming book called “The Royal Road to Romance.” Properly understood romance is nothing weepy and sentimental. As Halford Luccock suggested, romance is what heightens and colors the commonplace quality of life.
We are in a sense commonplace creations of dust to dust. But the Resurrection heightens and colors this commonplace nature and touches life with eternity. Indeed, life becomes a Royal Road to Romance. Through Christ and the Easter message men may truly become “Enchanted Dust.”
While this is true, death yet remains. Tragedies and frustrations beset men. John Masefield in the “Widow In Bye Street” tells of a brokenhearted mother in prayer for a son about to be executed.
And God who gave his mercies, takes his mercies
And God who gives beginnings, gives the end,
A rest for broken things too broke to mend.
Yes, men have twisted backs, missing legs, blinded eyes—broken things “too broke to mend.”
Injustices and slavery to wrong causes are also too broke to mend. Christian people upset over the decline of morals, over the apparent success of communism often are inclined to say, “Brothers, let us weep.” Too broke to mend.
“Broken things too broke to mend?” Christ comes into life and proclaims that all things are still in the hands of the Mender of broken earthenware. Eternal life brings powers beyond those of earthly resources.
Several men stand before a window in a far eastern city. Suddenly one of them exclaimed, “Shiftuh, I have seen Him!” In the window was a picture made of ink spots. When seen aright the face of Christ would be visible. Above the picture a sign read, “For you to see the face of Christ is our hope.”
The world is a place of dark spots but the hope of the world is Christ. The Hope comes when men can say, “Shiftuh, we have seen Him. We have seen Him!” Christ could not have risen unless first crucified; the Crucifixion made possible the Resurrection. Only once in history was death truly overcome, but only because of the Cross which preceded it.
For every individual then, eternal life becomes a reality only as the Cross is appropriated through faith. No one becomes enchanted dust nor knows the romance of the Resurrection until he first receives Christ and his Crucifixion (Rom. 6).
Otherwise all the grim facts of death are still realities. Life is just ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
A pastor tells this true experience. The parents would not permit their children to attend Sunday School. He visited them one day and a boy answered the door.
“Hi, Mister,” he said with a big smile.
“Hi, Jimmy,” said the pastor. “I came to invite you to attend our Sunday School. I’m the preacher.”
The little boy called toward another room in the house, “Mom, what’s a preacher?”
The parents never came to the church but the boy came every Sunday. One Sunday he was absent. Two days before Christmas the minister received a phone call at 5 in the morning. “I’m Jimmy’s mother. Come quickly to the hospital. He has pneumonia.” The pastor hurried to meet the mother. But when he arrived it was too late. The disease had done its worst. Jimmy was dead. Said the pastor later, “I buried him on a hillside as the snow was falling softly. I went to the home and saw the toys wrapped in a box behind the stove. The calendar said, ‘December 25th.’ Would Christmas ever come again for this family?”
“It was the month of April when the mother and father came before the church to receive Jesus Christ and give themselves to him as the Risen Lord. And I could see outside the new leaves on the trees and blooming flowers. We went to kneel before a small grave now turning green in the spring time. And thanked God for the Resurrection!”
Tomb, thou shalt not hold Him longer;
Death is strong, but life is stronger;
Stronger than the dark, the light;
Stronger than the wrong, the right
Faith and hope triumphant say—
Christ will rise on Easter Day!!
