The Kingdom That Will Endure - Sermon for Ash Wednesday (February 18, 2026)

Scripture Readings: Joel 2:1–2, 12–17 | Psalm 51 | 2 Corinthians 5:20b–6:10 | Matthew 6:1–6, 16–21

“Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 6:1).
 
“I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
 
That was a sonnet called Ozymandias, penned by the British poet Percy Shelley, apparently inspired by an ancient statue of an Egyptian Pharoah… contemplating the irony that this powerful ruler’s legacy… which must have seemed so grand and glorious in his day… had in time been reduced to sand and stones… and nothing more.   
 
It’s a stark reminder… especially for those of us seeking worldly glory, and who seem to be preoccupied with our own legacies… with what others think of us here on earth… a reminder that in the end every kingdom falls, and every legacy fades. Like King Ozymandias, all our works will likewise turn to dust.
 
Ash Wednesday offers us a similar reminder of our own mortality. In a world that does its best day by day to help us ignore and deny all signs of our weakness, fragility, and human limitations, Ash Wednesday reminds us that it is from dust that we all came, and to dust we will all return.
 
And yet, unlike Shelley’s poem that seems to present this humbling truth about our shared mortality with a sense of hopelessness and empty inevitability… Ash Wednesday does something very different: it calls us to remember our surprising place in the story, by locating our human fragility… our death-bound state of being within the scope of the grace, and mercy, and steadfast love of the Living God… giving us a hope far beyond anything we creatures of ash and dust can build for ourselves.
 
Ash Wednesday reminds us of the truth that while we are indeed ashes and dust… mortal, and fragile, and fallen… in His mercy and love the Living God Himself took on our frail humanity. In His Son, Jesus Christ, God became ashes and dust just like us… in every way, except for our sins… but then He bore those for us as well at the cross! Dying in our place… letting death’s full force fall upon Him, and then rising again to rescue us… and bring us into God’s own blessed and everlasting life.
 
Ash Wednesday reminds us that God knows exactly who and what we are… and yet, even though we are just ashes and dust, God loves us anyway… and through His Son Jesus, God has graciously opened up for us a glorious future… offering us freedom and forgiveness of our sins… turning our despair into joyful hope… and helping us set aside our selfishness and pride, and preoccupation with our own status and glory, to share God’s humble and self-giving love with one another, and with those in need all around us.

And so, having received the grace and mercy and love of the Living God, even though we are but ashes and dust… Ash Wednesday calls us to reject the proud path of Ozymandias… of striving to impress those around us, even with our own apparent righteousness and spiritual piety… twisting our devotion to God into a performance, all the while neglecting the connection that really matters: our relationship with Almighty God, through Jesus Christ, the real King of Kings.
 
And so Ash Wednesday invites us to humbly draw near to Jesus our Saviour in faith… to take up our own crosses and follow Him always… not as a performance, but as those wholeheartedly pursuing the way He has shown us… the way that leads to God’s true and everlasting life that His mercy and grace alone can provide.
 
In time, the world may think nothing of us. Or it might believe all kinds of lies about us, and misunderstand us completely. For better or worse, our legacies are out of our hands. But with the time that we have been given, with our days on this earth before we return to the earth, Christ calls us to pursue the things that will endure… to set our hearts on, and to live in line with God’s good Kingdom. 
 
He tells us, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 6:21).
 
Tonight, we remember that we are dust… and to dust we shall return. But we remember this alongside the blessed hope offered to us in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ our Saviour. In Him, our eternal fate is secure. In Him, we find new purpose… and are empowered to take part in the good work of His Kingdom even now… the only Kingdom that will have no end. Amen.