The Smells of Christmas

Pine trees, spiced apple cider, candles, a wood-burning fire, peppermint candy canes, Starbucks Holiday Blend. Boy, do these things smell good! Because of things like this, it’s not just beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, it’s beginning to smell a lot like Christmas. I’ve heard the sense of smell is the strongest sense connected to our memory. Maybe that’s why the aroma industry is so huge. Candles, plug-ins, air fresheners, deodorizers, perfumes, smell-good deodorants (I had to walk around smelling like raspberry a couple weeks ago when I ran out of deodorant and grabbed Michelle’s!), air fresheners for your car, aroma therapy. There are enough stimulants for our sniffers to keep us happy no matter where we are or what our favorite scent might be.

It’s easy to associate certain smells with certain experiences. In late July and early August, there’s something about the grass that changes. I can tell right when it does not by how it looks or how it feels, but because it notifies my nostrils that the start of football season has arrived. I can smell it. There are smells connected with Thanksgiving, and definitely a smell connected with New Year’s if you come from a family that has sauerkraut on that day. It’s the same with Christmas. What stands out about Christmas is not just the sights and sounds, but the smells.

It was probably that way for Mary and Joseph on the first Christmas. I imagine after that holy night in Bethlehem when the Son of God became flesh, the smell of a barn had a whole new meaning. Never again would they smell hay the same way. It was associated with an experience that transformed the smell of a barn into the smell of a miracle. It was the smell of God come to earth. It was the smell of life.

When I think about the smells of Christmas from my childhood, I recall the smell of my Mamma and PaPa’s house, of freshly baked carrot cake and the cup of coffee my PaPa seemed always to have in his hand. But I also think of the smell of Belle, West Virginia. (No I did not make this up for the sake of a rhyme. There really is a town of Belle that had a distinctive smell.) When I was growing up, on Christmas morning we’d get up and open presents, then pile everyone into the car and head south towards Charleston. Between Charleston and Cabin Creek, where my grandparents lived, was a little town along the banks of the Kanawha River called Belle. I had an aunt and uncle who lived there, and it was also home to a huge DuPont plant that always stunk to high heaven.

At that particular plant, they manufactured chemicals that went into fertilizer, and it smelled like ammonia all the time. You could smell it every time you drove through town. My Uncle Buck and Aunt Marlene lived just a few blocks from the plant and you could smell it every time you stepped out the door of their house. I called my parents to get some information about all of this because they lived there for six years when they were first married. My dad said, “That wasn’t a bad smell, that was the smell of money.” Years ago the plant employed lots of people. It was huge. It stretched out almost a mile long, along the Kanawha River. That smell was money for many people. Before the EPA was as active as it is now, the plant would occasionally have accidents where some of the chemicals would leak into the air. The stuff was so strong it would eat the paint off of houses and cars. On a few occasions the area residents filed complaints and the plant paid to have their homes repainted. So on top of living with the stink, they also had to cope with stink-related problems.

My own experience as a kid taught me that sometimes the smells surrounding Christmas aren’t just the good ones like pine trees and pumpkin pies. In fact, I think in a lot of ways, we can all relate to the way life was in Belle, because the truth is, we don’t have to live in the shadow of a chemical plant to know how stinky life can be.

The world can really stink. It’s been that way ever since sin contaminated the Garden of Eden. The world we live in stinks because of sin. There’s a stench because of abuse and divorce, poverty and injustice. What’s going on in Iraq stinks. The animosity between Israel and Palestine reeks. Prisons filled to capacity smell like hopelessness. The poison being manufactured in meth labs in our own town is a stench. Teen pregnancy; an out-of-control media that promotes sex and violence; basketball games that break out into brawls; kids killed in drunk-driving accidents. It stinks, it stinks, it stinks!

The world Paul lived in was pretty much full of stink too—literally and figuratively. Besides open trenches that served as a sewer system, the world then was as full of the stench of sin as it is now. One of his biggest challenges was to help people coming out of the stench figure out what it meant to live in Jesus Christ. Teaching how to live like Christ in an ungodly world was a “How to live in stink and come out smelling like a rose” kind of thing. But the purpose and power of Christianity has never been only in the power of a pure life in an impure world, of a sweet-smelling soul in a sea of stink. That’s huge in and of itself, but that alone isn’t the whole picture. We’re not called just to live in stink and come out smelling like a rose, but to invade the stink with another aroma.

To put it in today’s terms, we Christians are what God wants to use as aromatherapy for the world. We are the air fresheners, plug-ins, scented candles; we are the distributors of the nostril-notifying presence of God. We are to be the aroma of Christ while living in a world that often stinks to high heaven.

To those who believe: The aroma of Christ is spread with the smile or hug from a friend in a nursing home. The fragrance of the knowledge of Christ is spread by senior adults who invest in teaching and loving children. The aroma of Christ is spread when a familiar voice offering encouragement is on the phone when you answer it.

Paul says we spread the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ to those who are being saved, and to those who are perishing: What does that smell like? It smells like a couple with a boatload of kids adopting the other kids in the neighborhood who have had no Christian influence. It smells like a righteous life held strong even when it’s surrounded by sin, which means that for those who embrace a way of life without God, sometimes we’re the ones who don’t smell very well. It smells like the lone person exercising self-control in a crisis situation. The aroma of Christ is spread in jails where prisoners are visited, in pantries where the hungry are fed, and in conversations with lost friends, neighbors, and relatives when the gospel is shared. Through us—that’s how God wants to get the aroma out. Both to those who are being saved, and to those who are perishing. We are the aromatherapy the world needs.

Sometimes it can feel like we’re one 8-oz. can trying to fumigate an entire landfill. That’s probably why after saying we are the aroma of Christ, called to spread the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere, Paul goes on to say, “Who is equal to such a task?” (v. 16). He recognized his own inadequacy. In his own strength it was a losing battle. In our own strength the stink of the world overcomes the scent of the Christ who came to save it, which really makes me glad we’re not asked to spread the fragrance of Christ in our own strength.

I think my mother took a little offense when I called to inquire about the sickening smell of the place she used to call home. She didn’t say, “I’m offended;” I could just tell this wasn’t the kind of thing she was comfortable talking about, especially because I told her I was going to use it in a sermon. She was quick to point out that there were some pretty wonderful, godly people who lived in that little town in the shadow of an odor-producing plant. Actually she made the same point Paul is making in 2 Corinthians 2. Even in the midst of the stink there can be places permeated with a different fragrance—the fragrance of Christ that invades the stench and somehow overcomes it.

The last time I drove through Belle it didn’t smell the same. Chalk it up to the EPA, advances in technology, the perfection of chemical processes or whatever, but the truth is, it doesn’t stink like it used to. I think when Paul said what God wanted to do through us is spread everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him, He had something similar in mind. He probably had in mind that the next time He comes back (the 2nd Advent) through this world He created and died to redeem, it won’t smell like it used to. With the power of the Spirit within us, and the Risen Christ before us, maybe, just maybe He’ll be able to use us to spread Him everywhere, so that it’s not just beginning to look like Christ has come, it’s beginning to smell like He has come as well. “For we are to God the aroma of Christ to those who are being saved, and to those who are perishing” (v. 15).

Prayer

Benediction: Go forth in the power of the Spirit to permeate your surroundings with the aroma of the Christ.