A Sweet Fragrance

When I was in high school I worked for Baskin Robbins. After a while I got to start making the waffle cones. On those nights I would get home and my mom would smell me from across the room. She would then come hug me so she could get a better whiff and tell me how good I smelled. Not long after I became manager of the store. I was transporting some of the waffle cone mix and I took a corner too fast. The bucket fell over, but I didn’t realize the top came off. The next afternoon when I went to get it out, I saw the spill all over the back of my hatchback. I cleaned it up the best I could, but the Texas heat cooked some into the carpet and board that covered the spare. For years, when the car would get hot, the smell of waffle cones permeated my car.

In Luke 7, Jesus went to eat with a Pharisee. After he was reclining at the table, a woman in the town, who had a reputation of being a sinner, came in to see Him. She began to weep over her sin. The tears began to fall on Jesus’ feet and she then wiped them off with her hair cleaning His feet. She also began to kiss His feet as a sign of respect and submission while the others watched. She then opened an alabaster jar of perfume and poured it on His feet. As the aroma filled the house, the Pharisee began to doubt Jesus was who He said He was because He was allowing this sinful woman to touch Him. Jesus told him a parable of two people who owed different amount of debt showing the one who was forgiven more, loved more. Then he showed how this woman was expressing her love over the forgiveness of her many sins.

2 Corinthians 2:15-16 says, “For we are the sweet fragrance of Christ [which ascends] to God, [discernible both] among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; to the latter one an aroma from death to death [a fatal, offensive odor], but to the other an aroma from life to life [a vital fragrance, living and fresh]” (AMP). Our lives give off an aroma to God. Just like there are pleasant odors and there are offensive odors, lives give off similar smells to God. What aroma does your life give off? Is it one that is fresh and pleasing? Is it one that makes people stop and want to take a deeper whiff? Our lives reflect our love for God. While some forgiven sins are more noticeable than others, God’s forgiveness saved us from the same fate. The way we live then should be as a result of that love for God, giving off a fragrance that fills whatever room we’re in.

Photo by Guilherme Stecanella on Unsplash