dust, sweat, blood, tears, and scars

"To be alive at all is to have scars."

John Steinbeck

“As He spoke, He showed them the wounds in His hands and His side.

They were filled with joy when they saw the Lord!”

John 20:20

On Monday night, I gave the sermon at my father-in-law’s memorial service.

Huddled in the sanctuary of Shady Grove Methodist Church, family and friends gathered to mourn and celebrate the life of Dr. Richard Keep.

Crafting a eulogy is never easy. My father-in-law lived to be 82, a Methodist preacher who delivered thousands of sermons over the years. Yet, I can’t recall much of what he said from the pulpit. His life, however, was a sermon of its own, a message still speaking, even now that he is gone. In many ways, his life was the last, and loudest, sermon he ever preached.

As I reflected on his legacy, I was reminded that our lives are not just a sequence of events—birth, accomplishments, relationships, and death. Our lives are sacred biographies, narratives of grace, redemption, and mercy unfolding in real-time.

The Sermon that is your life.

Like it or not, every man preaches a sermon with his life. More than words, it is the arc and depth of a life that speaks. The Apostle Paul understood this when he told the Corinthians, "You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone." (2 Cor. 3:2)

One day, each of us will die. When that day comes, others will sift through the fragments of our lives, gathering moments to honor and remember us by. But our sermon is not just the eulogy spoken over us, it is the daily message we proclaim, whether we realize it or not.

Every man preaches five sermons with his life.
In the end, what we say with our lives comes down to five words:

Dust. Sweat. Blood. Tears. Scars.

DUST

"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

This ancient phrase speaks to our first and most foundational sermon—humility.
The Latin word humus refers to the earth—a fertile, life-giving soil, and is the root of the word human. Likewise, humility comes from humilitas, meaning "grounded" or "close to the earth."

Modern culture tells us we are autonomous, masters of our own fate. But our very bodies preach a different sermon. We are dust. Not in a way that diminishes our worth but in a way that places us rightly before God. This isn’t self-deprecation; it’s theological realism.

The Desert Fathers understood this. They knew that embracing our dependence on God was the foundation of all spiritual growth. To deny this is to fall into what Jung called inflation, a spiritual pride that separates us from both God and our own souls.

Our very bodies preach humility. They hunger. They tire. They grow old. They die. A man’s humility, his reverence for the fragility and gift of life, preaches against pride and self-reliance.

SWEAT

The second sermon is Sweat: the dignity and necessity of doing good work.

This is the sermon of showing up, day after day, doing what needs to be done without fanfare or recognition. It’s the father who works two jobs to provide for his family. The volunteer who serves faithfully for decades. The mentor who invests in the next generation.

We live in a world that swings between two extremes: work as a necessary evil and work as self-actualization. But neither view is biblical. Work existed before the Fall. When we labor, even in unseen places, we participate in God’s work of creation and renewal.

Karl Rahner spoke of how our daily work, no matter how mundane, participates in God’s ongoing creation of the world. Whether in a factory, an office, or a classroom, our work is a sermon.

Christ dignified work. He spent most of His earthly life as a carpenter, shaping wood before shaping hearts. Your work, how you labor, and what you create either pushes the world toward redemption or contributes to its brokenness.

As Dorothy Sayers put it, "No crooked table legs or ill-fitting drawers ever came out of the carpenter’s shop in Nazareth. Nor, if they did, could anyone believe they were made by the same hand that made heaven and earth."

Your work is both worship and witness.

BLOOD

The third sermon is Blood: the sermon of sacrifice.

Every man will bleed for something in his lifetime. The question is, for what?
In a culture addicted to comfort and self-fulfillment, sacrifice is seen as an interruption to life. But in reality, sacrifice is the very means by which true life is transmitted.

Every parent knows this. Every faithful spouse understands this. Every leader who carries the weight of responsibility lives this. Sacrifice is not a tragic necessity; it is the currency of love.

This is not the false martyrdom that seeks attention but the quiet, daily pouring out of self for others. It mirrors Christ’s kenosis, His self-emptying love.

A man’s life declares what truly matters by what he chooses to bleed for.

TEARS

The fourth sermon is Tears.

Jesus wept at the death of His friend Lazarus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, and over the city of Jerusalem. Tears are not signs of weakness; they are indicators of what truly matters to us. Albert Camus once said, "Live to the point of tears." In our tears, we find both our humanity and our deepest values.

Tears of pain connect us to our own vulnerability and the suffering of the world. They remind us that we are not immune to the brokenness around us. Tears of joy, on the other hand, connect us to beauty, to moments of grace that break into our daily existence.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus wept tears of anguish, fully embracing the weight of His mission. His tears were a prelude to His ultimate sacrifice, a moment of profound honesty before God.

Our tears, like Christ’s, are sacramental. They wash away pretense, revealing the true state of our hearts. They are the silent prayers that words cannot express and the deep groans that reach the heart of God.

A man preaches what he loves by the tears he weeps.

SCARS

The fifth sermon is Scars.

Scars are proof of both wounding and healing. They tell stories of pain but also of survival, redemption, and resurrection.

Psychologists studying post-traumatic growth confirm what the saints have always known: adversity can deepen compassion, resilience, and wisdom. Scars are not just reminders of past wounds; they are testimonies of healing.

Henri Nouwen called this becoming a wounded healer, allowing our brokenness to become a source of healing for others. This is not about glorifying suffering but recognizing that our scars, like Christ’s, can point to the possibility of transformation.

When Jesus appeared to His disciples after the resurrection, He didn’t erase His scars. He showed them. And in seeing His wounds, His followers were filled with joy.

SACRED BIOGRAPHY

These five sermons, Dust, Sweat, Blood, Tears, and Scars, form the sacred biography of a man’s life.

Together, they preach both our fallenness and our hope for restoration.

Dust reminds us we are creatures, dependent on God.
Sweat calls us to meaningful labor.
Blood speaks of love through sacrifice.
Tears speak of a wholehearted participation in life.
Scars proclaim the hope of redemption.

Christ, the son of God, became man for us, born of dust. He wept and worked and died in our place. He rose again and showed His scars to His friends. And He calls us to be conformed to His sacred biography, to live in His story and not the world’s.

The question is not whether your life is preaching these sermons. It is.
The real question is: Are you preaching this story well?

Is it pointing toward the ultimate sermon? The life, death, and resurrection of Jesus?

What are you saying with the gift that is your life?
___________________________________

After the service, Christy and I got in the car and drove all night back to New York.
Somewhere along I-81, as the darkness stretched before us, I began to weep.

Grateful for the dust, sweat, blood, tears, and scars I had witnessed that night.

Resolved to live out of a sacred biography rather than a secular story of self.

Hoping this week, you can take some time to reflect on what your sacred biography will be.

Cheers.

Jon.