Cheryl and I visited the Coca Cola museum in Atlanta. At the end of the tour there is a tasting room where you can sample over sixty different sodas that Coke makes and sells around the world. There was one from Africa that I started to taste, but as soon as I held the sample cup up to my lips, the smell convinced me that I did not really want to try that one after all.

Smells can be a warning. When you are driving your car and you notice a funny, burning smell coming from the Air Conditioner vents, that is a signal to pull over and see what is wrong. Or maybe you’ve had something like this happen at your house: Cheryl will take something out of the frig, open it, smell it, and if she thinks it doesn’t smell quite right, that it might have something wrong with it, she gives it to me and says, “Here, taste this!”

Sometimes we use smell to describe things. I remember when Bethany was playing basketball in 8^th grade. They played their main rival and lost badly. I was not at the game because of a meeting at Church, but I picked her up afterwards. We were taking another girl home, too. The girls were talking about how badly they played and Bethany said, “we stunk up the place.” While they didn’t smell too good at the time, they weren’t talking about literal odor. In that context, it is describing something in less than flattering terms. And their play that night did stink.

Yesterday I shared this passage that speaks of us “smelling good for God.”

2 Corinthians 2:14-16 But 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. And who is equal to such a task?

When you strive to be the aroma of Christ, some will like it, others will not. It’s kind of like incense. Some people love the way it smells. Others hate it. Those who know of Christ and share our belief in Him as the Way, the Truth and the Life will receive us as the fragrance of life. But to those without faith, those outside the body of believers, Paul says our Christian life will be to them the smell of death.

Do you know the smell of death? It is foul, offensive and unmistakable. That is what the people were warning Jesus about when He told them to open up the tomb of Lazarus. He had been in there four days. The odor would be extremely foul (John 11:38-39). But Jesus changed death to life, eliminating the stench. Those who put their confidence in Him get this.

To those perishing, this aroma of Christ, this fragrance of life, will remind them they are doomed, helpless and hopeless without the confidence we have in Christ Jesus. They have hope only for this life. Our fragrant life of obedience to Christ says there is more than just this life, and it raises in their nostrils the stench of their own death. Those who live without Christ are spiritually dead and the stink of their own corruption will be strong. However, they have been in it so long they are accustomed to it. Only when a breath of fresh air or a pleasing aroma comes around are they reminded of their own malodorous surroundings.

Hopefully, they will want to be made clean and get rid of the stink. Cleansing is available. A real washing can be had in Baptism, washing away both sins and the stench of death. We are made clean, fresh, and new by God. That doesn’t mean we will never again do anything that stinks. We will. But all those sins were taken care of when Jesus died. Our repentance and confession assures us of forgiveness and refreshes us.

As those who follow Jesus, those who try to be a pleasing aroma in response to the forgiveness and new life he has given us, as those who have passed from death to life, we want the same for others. We want the aroma of Christ to be an attraction for them, we want them to hear the Word, believe the promises, take to heart the Good News so that what Jesus said of us can also be said of them:

I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. John 5:24

Are you up to being a pleasing aroma for the Lord? Who can smell good and right before God? No one. None of us, unless we have help. And we do. The Holy Spirit enables us to be a fragrance of life. The Holy Spirit empowers us to be the aroma of Christ. He has brought us to faith, assured us of forgiveness and life and salvation for Jesus’ sake, and he then makes it possible for us to live a life in response to the good news, the life that surrounds us with the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ so others will get a whiff of it. What’s that smell? It is the aroma of Christ. Take it with you. Let it emanate from you.