What's That Smell?
“But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved…”
Paul to the believers in Corinth
Friends,
I have been so blessed by our series on the Psalms of Ascent and I pray you have been too. These psalms would have been sung and recited on the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the holiest days of the Hebrew calendar. As the pilgrims came close, before they got into the city and near the temple, they would catch a whiff in the air of the sacrifices being offered to God. You would know when you were getting close with the place where God could be met by the smell. A place of worship where animals were being offered and burned would have given off quite the scent.
The temple still stood when Paul wrote to the church at Corinth that followers of Jesus are covered with the “fragrance that comes from knowing him.” The love we are called to share, the kindness we have been created to show, and the stories we are being saved to tell….these are the “aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved.” So while our lives have times that stink we have joined the ‘triumphal procession’ that smells of heaven and hope.
May hope and heaven so cover us that people can see it- and smell it- from miles away.
Blessings
Pastor Ben