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Good morning. The term Ground Zero was first used during the Manhattan Project that planned the deadly bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. After the Manhattan Project, Ground Zero came to mean that part of the earth situated immediately under an exploding bomb. Since 9/11 Ground Zero has come to refer to the site in New York City where a rather different Manhattan project left 3000 people dead. One of the most poignant images of that distressing day was the upsurge of dust and ashes coming out of the descending buildings. That dust remained in the air for weeks, even years afterwards. Half of those who died in the twin towers were not afterwards identifiable in the remains. Their lives made up much of that dust. On this day, Ash Wednesday, Christians mark the beginning of Lent by receiving on their heads an imprint of dust and ashes, with the words, ‘Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ In the book of Genesis, we are told ‘the Lord God formed humanity from the dust of the ground, and breathed into its nostrils the breath of life.’ Dust means trampled dreams, destroyed buildings, shed skin. Dust is death. This is Ground Zero. But for Christians, this is where God began. God made humanity out of this dust. God started from zero. This is the crux of the Christian faith. When Christ walked the way of the cross, three times he fell under its weight, and bit the dust. But Christians believe God remade Christ out of the dust of the earth. On the day of resurrection, just as on the day of creation, God started from zero and built something that would last forever. The poet Robert Bridges wrote the line, ‘Tower and temple turn to dust.’ Those words came true on 9/11. But the truth is, we shall all be part of that pile of dust one day. When as a priest I stand beside a graveside at a burial, and throw soil onto the coffin, and say the evocative words, ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,’ a shiver goes through me and everyone gathered around: a shiver of mortality, and humility. We too are dust, and to dust we shall return. ‘Remember you are dust.’ Ash Wednesday is about starting from zero and letting God make something beautiful out of that dust. It’s about remembering the story of a God who made us, called Abraham out of the dust of the desert, remade Christ from the dust of the tomb, made a new Manhattan Project from the dust of Ground Zero, breathes life into nostrils cloyed by dust, and will finally make all things new.