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Printer Friendly VersionPine 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.