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We Are The Aroma Of Christ

            Some odors are unmistakable.  One whiff and instantly your nose sends a message to your brain, telling you either, “Ahhh!” or “Eewww!” – stepping into the kitchen and smelling freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, driving along I-94 on Opening Day as little white clouds from the parking lots carry the smell of brats on the grill, Easter lilies in church.  But then there’s the time you were driving down a country road and caught the unmistakable smell of a skunk or found yourself downwind of a pig farm.  Ever been in the locker room of a high school football team with practice jerseys that haven’t been washed in a week?  Some odors make us glad, and some make us want to gag.

            In the second lesson for this day from the apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he mentions an odor that all of his readers understood.  After a great Roman victory, the soldiers came back home to a big parade, their horses draped in garlands of fresh flowers and an additional fragrance not as familiar to us – burning incense.  As people lined the roadway, the smell of flowers and incense meant, “Victory!”  But at the end of the parade enemy soldiers were stumbling along, filthy, sweaty, wrists tied behind their backs, ankles chained to each other, heads bowed.  They smelled the flowers and incense, too.  But for them the aroma meant defeat and signaled, “We’re heading to the gallows.”  The same aroma made some glad and others gag.

            So, what do you smell like?  No, I’m not checking on whether you showered today, nor am I checking on whether you used deodorant.  What I’m getting at is what the apostle Paul wrote about in this letter.  We want people to join us on the victory parade to heaven, and the only way that happens is if people like us tell someone else what Jesus did for them because We Are The Aroma Of Christ.

Competent to be his aroma

            Is it your college roommate, your co-worker, your neighbor?  Is it your spouse, your parent, your child?  You have always wanted that person to enjoy the same confidence in Jesus that you enjoy and to join you on Jesus’ victory parade to heaven.  You’ve heard a zillion times that witnessing about Christ is what Christians do, but you’re afraid.  What if they don’t want to listen?  What if they think you’re some kind of religious nut?  What if your witnessing ruins your relationship or friendship with them?   There are all kinds of barriers to witnessing for Christ.  If we lined up our fears like Dominos, the line would stretch down the aisle, out the door, and half way to Wisconsin Avenue.

            Maybe there’s a way to knock down those Dominos.  Maybe it’s time to ask better questions.  What if the greatest gift we can give is the gift of eternal life?  It is!  What if there is only one way to defeat the devil’s tricks and temptations?  There is!  What if people we know and those we don’t know are headed for eternal gallows, and there’s only one way to knock the chains of sin off their ankles, only one way to cut the ropes of guilt from their wrists, only one way to clean them up and lift their heads to the skies in grateful praise?  There is!  Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him.  For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.  To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life.

            One question remains – Who is equal to such a task?  Some new teachers had arrived in Corinth and tried to get people to raise their eyebrows about Paul.  “Look at him!  Ten years of traveling from town to town, taking nothing but flack.  What’s he got to show for it?  No pension, no retirement condo, nothing!”  Paul heard of their accusations and could have answered the question, “Who is competent?” by saying, “Not me.”  But he didn’t.  Without puffing his chest out in pride and without shuffling his feet in the dirt in false humility, Paul answered, “Who is competent?” by stating, “I am, and the Corinthian Christians are!”  Unlike the new teachers in Corinth who flashed their business cards with all kinds of initials behind their names, who peddled their stories like a tavern owner trying to make extra dough by deceitfully diluting the wine, who did their preaching for personal gain, Paul said that all Christians are competent to attract people for heaven because We Are The Aroma Of Christ.

           What does it take?  What gets us to be the right odor, a sweet smelling fragrance to God, and an appealing aroma for others?  Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit.  On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like people sent from God.  1) We Are The Aroma Of Christ because we speak … with sincerity.  We want to attract people with the knowledge of who Jesus is and what he did – not to add stats to our church or scalps to our personal witness spear, not to get more offerings so we make the budget, but because we sincerely want more people to enjoy his love and forgiveness.  Examine our motives in the bright light of the sun, and anyone who looks will find them to be pure – well, pure because motives that were rather stinky have been washed away in Jesus’ blood and replaced by pure motives.  2) We Are The Aroma Of Christ because we speak … like people sent from God.  We aren’t making stuff up and sharing mindless opinions.  We don’t offer theories or guesswork.  We say only what God says.  Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God.  Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.  He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant – not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.  We’ve got good news to share, good news about a gift presented to us by God himself, not rules upon rules upon rules, but good news that Jesus fulfilled all God’s rules for us, that God considers his rule-keeping as though we did it, that Jesus paid for our rule-breaking, that God considers his payment as though we paid it, that Jesus did not stay dead, leaving us to wonder whether he still has more rules to keep or more payment to make or wonder whether we still have rules to keep or payment to make to get God to like us, but came back to life to prove that everything God said he would do he did.  Jesus is the aroma, and he permeates our lives inside and out.  Because of Jesus God can dip his heavenly ladle into the soup of this world, scoop us up, take a whiff, and say, “Ahhhh!  Smells right to me.”  3) We Are The Aroma Of Christ because we speak … before God.  We are under God’s supervision, and we have his help.  Could you stand before kings and rulers and boldly testify to the truth of Jesus as Paul did?  Sure you could because you are the aroma of Christ.  You can talk to any friend, any new acquaintance, and even world leaders and say with Paul, “I have had God’s help to this very day, and so I stand here and testify to small and great alike … that Christ suffered and rose from the dead” (Acts 26:22-23).  4) We Are The Aroma Of Christ because we speak … in Christ.  Our goal is not to twist arms or to argue but to let the aroma of Christ float – no, more than that – billow from us.  Last January, I was in Austin.  A member of the congregation there invited us to his ranch.  He had a grill so big it had to be pulled by a truck.  On that grill he had barbecued chicken, ribs, and beef brisket that had been marinating for days.  When he opened that grill, a cloud of smoke billed out, carrying an aroma that makes my tummy rumble with excitement and anticipation every time I think about that.  We are in the sphere of Christ, in his grill, marinated in his blood, steeped in his love, and when Jesus opens the cover, the aroma of Christ comes billowing out.  We are competent to witness for Christ because We Are The Aroma Of Christ.

Caring as his aroma

            Remember your first date with that someone special you really cared about?  You didn’t just clean up and put on a nice outfit.  You chose just the right perfume.  And you women aren’t the only ones.  We guys looked at the top of our dorm dresser and realized that we only had a little bottle of smelly-foo-foo which we got as a Christmas present from a well-meaning aunt because it was the brand Grandpa wore, and we realized that our roommate only had cheap stuff he picked up at Target.  So, we ran down the hall and checked from room to room to see if anyone had any decent cologne.  Why?  We wanted to smell nice, not just because we didn’t want to be embarrassed, not just to make a good impression, but because we cared.

            Why do we do that only for those we think are special?  I don’t mean perfume and cologne.  I mean caring.  Why not for everybody?  Do we really care about strangers?  What about people different from us, not just looking different but different income?  And do we really care about those closest to us, care enough that we want them not just to like us, to stay friends with us, to be there for us, and to be there for them but to share with them the only way to get in the parade to heaven?  Ouch!  That cuts at my heart, and I imagine it cuts at yours, too, because we’re so good at caring for ourselves and caring for others if it makes for a nicer life now.  But what about life forever?  Praise God that Jesus rose from the grave to prove that our selfishness has been forgiven, our fears of witnessing have been forgiven, our timid approach to people about what really counts has been forgiven.  Praise God that the living Lord has permeated our very being so that we smell like him and care like him.

            That’s what happened for the apostle.  His detractors said that Paul was trying to worm his way into the Corinthian’s hearts by writing his own letter of recommendation.  But Paul didn’t need that.  The Corinthians were his letter.  They were always on his heart.  “Are we beginning to commend ourselves again?  Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you?  You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody.  You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”  He cared so much about the Corinthians that he even gave up an open door opportunity just to see them.  “When I went to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ and found that the Lord had opened a door for me, I still had no peace of mind, because I did not find my brother Titus there [with a report on the Corinthians].  So I said good-by to them and went on to Macedonia.”  Paul not taking advantage of an open door to preach Jesus to more people?  That’s like getting a chance for some business networking at an all-expense paid reception downtown on the same night that your niece has her first piano recital … and choosing your niece and her recital.  Paul cared enough about the Corinthians that he was willing to forego a great opportunity in order to visit them, and his care and concern were a model for them to be caring and concerned for others.

            Roses don’t need to apologize for their smell even if some people are allergic to it.  We Are The Aroma Of Christ with no apologies.  Will some react as though they are allergic to us?  Maybe!  But it’s not our job to worry about the reaction.  The garlands on the horses and the incense that burned in a Roman victory parade just had an aroma, and they couldn’t help it.  We are in the victory parade to heaven, We Are The Aroma Of Christ, and we care enough to do whatever it takes to waft that aroma in the direction of everyone we meet.

            Would you like to have a lifelong buddy now and on into eternity?  Do you want to demonstrate to someone how special he or she is and how much you care?  Then put on “Eau de Jesus” and live as the aroma of Christ.    Amen.

Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (http://www.gracedowntown.org/) on April 26, 2009

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Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church | 1209 North Broadway Milwaukee, WI 53202 | (414) 271-3006

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