A pleasing aroma

Several days ago, my house was filled with an aroma that I had not smelled in over five years. The source of the smell was coming from the kitchen, more specifically, from some marinated chicken being fried in a skillet. The pieces of chicken had some authentic spices from Africa sprinkled all over them (thank you Jungle Jim’s), and my friend and colleague from Zambia was cooking it. I’ve learned that there are different kinds of memory coming from different parts of the body. Our brains can remember thoughts and experiences. Our muscles have “muscle memory” from doing the same task over-and-over again. Our ears can hear a familiar song which takes us back to times many years ago. But one of the most powerful types of memory comes from smells, and usually for me, from food. The aroma from the cooking chicken in my house took me right back to being in Africa with a mission team from Ohio, waiting hungrily for lunch or dinner while spiced chicken was cooking over an open fire. That is a pleasing aroma inducing a powerfully enjoyable memory.

I’ve also smelled some smells that are not so pleasant, like opening up a broken floor freezer full of rotten meat after coming home from a trip. There’s also the smell of a hospital room with someone suffering with a terrible disease, or someone in the sweat and pain of dying, and those smells take me back to painful memories of saying goodbye to someone I love.

The Bible talks about aromas, both good and bad, and it does so in both the Old and New Testaments. Throughout the first five books of the Bible, there are 39 instances by my count where meat or grain is offered on the altar to the Lord resulting in a “pleasing aroma” to the Lord. Similarly, there are many other instances where incense and oil are offered, resulting in a “fragrant” smell that pleases the Lord. It is not that God gets hungry like we do when the meat is on the grill, or that he prefers certain perfumes or colognes. God sees the heart of the one who is worshiping accompanied by the costly sacrifice, and he is pleased with the faithfulness and integrity of the one worshiping him.

The New Testament picks up this theme of pleasing aromas and fragrant offerings in describing Jesus Christ and the Church. There was nothing worse in the Roman Empire than seeing (or smelling) someone dying on a cross, a death so horrible that no Roman citizen would ever be subjected to it no matter the crime. Even so, the Apostle Paul describes Jesus’ sacrificial death “as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:2) That act of the supreme sacrifice on behalf of humanity was the perfect sacrifice of sacrifices. Like the smoke of incense rising in the Temple before God the Father, it was a righteous and costly gift pungent with a good fragrance.

In the Second Letter to the Corinthians, Paul describes the ones who follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ like this: “For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life.” (2:15-16) What does that mean? Simply this: there is an aroma that accompanies the life of a disciple of Jesus. As you learn to walk in the way of Jesus, becoming obedient to him and putting into practice his teachings, you start to smell a certain way, not literally but figuratively. Who is smelling the aroma of your life? God is, for one. Instead of bringing a sacrifice of an animal or agricultural product or incense or oil to the altar, your life itself becomes the sacrifice placed on the altar. The way you live, the choices you make, the words you use, the central part of who you are as you are submitted to Christ, rises up along with your prayers like a fragrant offering.

God is not the only one smelling the aroma of your life. The people around you can also “smell” what you are all about. Here is where it gets interesting: you can smell differently to different people as they experience you. If you are living your life humbly before God, then those who also belong to God are refreshed and encouraged by the aroma of your life. As Jesus lives through you, those who belong to Jesus recognize the pleasing aroma of Jesus as they experience you. If Jesus lives in you, then the aroma of Jesus oozes out of your pores to the people around you. The reverse is true as well. Not everyone appreciated Jesus and his message. After all, he did end up on a cross, and the people who put him there didn’t have much use for him. That reality has not changed over the passing of two millennia. Most of humanity has rejected Jesus and his way, and as they experience people who belong to Jesus, a different kind of odor repels them. The aroma of Christ is pleasing to those who belong to him, but it is repelling to those who don’t. Conversely, what seems fragrant to a sinful world is like the stink of rotten meat to God. So, it is a forced choice. What kind of aroma will your life emit? Will it be pleasing to God and to God’s people, and at the same time repelling to those who have rejected the way of Christ? Or will it please the world, but in the end fail the smell test of God? I know for my own part I want to have the aroma of Christ characterizing my life. I’ll go for broke in pleasing God, and if that displeases the world’s sensitivities, so be it.

Derek Russell is pastor of the Hillsboro Global Methodist Church. He loves Jesus, family, dogs and football.