THE AROMA OF CHRIST

(Post by: Michelle Hobbs)

Welcome back! We are so glad you have joined us for another blog post in preparation for Easter. Today is Wednesday of the Passion Week. If you have been in our Sunday School class, you will know what happened on Wednesday of the Passion Week…nothing. (It’s an ongoing joke that if you can’t remember anything else from class, you can surely remember what happened on Wednesday. Nothing! LOL)

Wednesday is known as a silent day. Scripture does not reveal Jesus’ actions on this day.

So, when the girls assigned me the post for Wednesday, I thought, “Great! What in the world am I going to say?” Lucky for you and me, I have more to say about the story I shared with you on Sunday from John 12: 1-8.

As I have continued to contemplate this Scripture, more thoughts, questions, and connections have come to mind.

First, did you notice in verse 3 that after Mary poured the perfume on Jesus’ feet, she began wiping it with her hair?

This fascinated me as I was considering the power and meaning of the scent of the perfume that would have lingered on Jesus throughout the Passion Week, letting everyone who smelled it know that He was King. If Mary wiped the perfume with her hair, surely she would have had the same fragrance clinging to her.

How can this be acceptable? Is she royalty as well? Because of what Jesus did for her, and for us, on the Cross, the answer is “Yes!”

Romans 8:17 says, “Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory.”

You see, if you have accepted Jesus as your Savior, you are an heir to the Kingdom of God. To be an heir means that we have a royal inheritance in Heaven. All because of the matchless grace of God.

Second, I was thinking about other Scriptures that mention fragrance or aroma.

Y’all know I love to study the Tabernacle! Therefore, I immediately thought of the Altar of Incense which stood in the Holy Place continuously giving off a sweet-smelling smoke which would rise above the veil and fill the Holy of Holies where God’s presence was. The fragrance from the incense represents the people’s prayers (Revelation 8: 3-4). So every time the worshippers would catch a whiff of it, they would know their prayers were constantly being brought before God.

God also says this about His chosen people, Israel, in Ezekiel 20:41, “As a pleasing aroma I will accept you, when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you have been scattered. And I will manifest my holiness among you in the sight of the nations.”

Scripture also gives us this declaration about Christ’s followers. “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 [the Anointed One] among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life.”  2 Corinthians 2: 14-16

Friends, may we remember that what Jesus did for us on the Cross has made those who accept Him as their personal Savior royal heirs to the Kingdom of God. In His infinite mercy, God has set us, His people, apart from the world to display His holiness to the nations. Our prayers are a sweet aroma to the Lord, and we are to pray without ceasing. And finally, you and I are the aroma of Christ to those around us.

Everywhere we go, we have the opportunity to bring the good news, to bring life, to a dying world. I hope that we take that responsibility seriously. Let this study of the Passion Week light a fire in you. Let it be kindled by the remembrance of Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice that tore the veil and brought us directly to the throne of God.

“Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!”   Psalm 141:2