Increase the Aroma of Christ

Our sense of smell is a powerful thing. I have taken a liking to using essential oils in a diffuser in my home – lavender, eucalyptus, and lemongrass are among my favorite scents. They not only freshen the air against my sometimes stinky little boys, but they actually sanitize the air. They are even supposed to be good for clearing your sinuses and your mind.

Perhaps you have a certain smell that reminds you of home, of family, or of some other significant experience in your life. As long as I live, the smell of kielbasa with garlic and sauerkraut will immediately transport me back to warm memories of my large, loud, polish family, gathered together for holiday meals. 

The smell of kielbasa and kraut is unmistakable. It is so strong that it can nearly knock you over when you walk into a home where it has been cooking all day. It is the kind of smell that you either love, or hate. It makes your mouth water, or it makes you gag. Perhaps you have that kind of smell in your precious memories, too.

Our sense of smell is a powerful thing because it demands a response from us. Think about it: how often do you smell something, anything, without immediately forming an opinion about it? As soon as a smell hits our nose, our brain begins trying to make sense of it, judging it as either pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad. We are drawn in to inhale more deeply and take more in, or to move away and try not to breathe through our nose anymore. Smells confront us, and even if we try, we cannot stay neutral. We always judge them as good or bad.

The apostle Paul uses our sense of smell, and our reaction to smells, as a picture of how the world reacts to the church as we carry the presence of Christ with us everywhere we go. He writes in 2 Corinthians 2:14-17:

“But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. 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. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God.”

Paul's readers would have been familiar with his reference to a triumphal parade. The Romans had these victory parades after winning battles, and they would burn incense in the streets as part of the victory celebration. For the Roman citizens whose nation was victorious, the incense smelled like success and celebration. But for the enemy captives, the smell of incense brought to mind the reality of being prisoners likely to die or be sold as slaves. The incense smelled different, depending on where you were standing in relation to victory.

In the same way, the presence of Christ in us has an aroma. This aroma follows us, flows out from us wherever we go. It confronts people when they come into contact with it. Based on how people perceive this aroma, they are exposed as either being people of life, or people of death. When confronted with Jesus, people necessarily fall to one side or the other. This is to be expected.

Therefore as agents of His presence in the world, we will be hated on account of Him (John 15:18-25). Also, at times, we will be loved on account of Him. He is our life, and we live not unto ourselves, but unto Him. His life is our life. When we were baptized, we died, we were buried with Him, and then we were resurrected into His resurrected life (Galatians 2:20, Colossians 3:1-4). Though we cannot see it with our naked eye, we are, quite literally, living in Him, covered by Him, and hidden in Him. So we will be loved and hated, not as a response to us, but as a response to Jesus who is our life. 

This news is both good and hard. It is good news, because in the end, we see once again that it really is all about Him. He becomes more, we become less, and that is always good news. I am less caught up in people’s rejection of me when I realize that my life is truly in Jesus. Who cares if it feels like they are rejecting me, when in reality they are rejecting Him, the King of kings and Lord of lords? This speaks of freedom from me, freedom from you, and freedom to preach the Gospel without stumbling over the rejection of people.  And that is always good news.

Yet, it is also hard news. It is hard because living as an authentic bearer of the presence and victory of Jesus will inevitably bring hatred from those who reject Him. His life in us, is, by its very nature, a source of spiritual confrontation to the people around us.

And so Paul says (v16), (and I paraphrase): good grief! Who is equal, adequate, to such a task as this?!

Yet, unlike many on the wide road that leads to destruction, we do not soften the blow in order to gain profit and favor from the world. That would be dishonest. Instead, we stay locked into Jesus, authentic in our mission to be His disciples, and confident that we are sent by Him and we answer to Him (v17).

If Paul’s analogy of the aroma of Christ carries out, and I cautiously say that it does, then let’s follow it a little further. It seems right to expect that the more we are filled with the Spirit and the more we live in Christ, the more confrontational our aroma will become, both to those who smell it as life, and to those who smell it as death and destruction. The more we represent Jesus to people, the more they have to come face to face with which side of Victory they choose to stand upon.

As disciples of Jesus, our aroma cannot be neutral. If we are not attracting, as well as repelling, the people around us, then are we actually carrying the aroma of Christ which exposes the hearts of all people?  If the aroma that follows us as we go along in life stirs up nothing, shakes up no one, appeals to no one, offends no one, and piques no one’s interest, then we have to stop and ask why this is.

Maybe we need to repent of our fear, and our overwhelming ingestion of cultural Christianity's demand that we accommodate everyone and require nothing of believers. Or maybe we just need to ask, continually, daily – Spirit, won’t you increase the aroma of Christ in us?