A Question of Fragrance

Hi, this is Cynthia Dowling, and here we are at the end of spring! Don't you just love all the bright colors and the fragrances that permeate the air from the beautiful, springtime flowers? I've had some hyacinths blooming in my front yard and their fragrance is one of my favorites. Aren't you glad God gave us a sense of smell and things to smell? What a wonderful gift that only God could create!

Fragrances started intriguing me as a child. Growing up with a very long growing season in California and having a mother with a green thumb, I was surrounded with flowers everywhere, from a rose garden outside my window to all kinds of beautiful and exotic flowers in the yard, and I sniffed them all. And, of course, I learned that some flowers smell nice, some don't, and some are quite unique in their fragrance. My childhood yard favorite aromatics were gardenias--gardenias and roses. But then, my very favorite overall fragrance came from the orange blossoms in the acreage next door. Every day on the way to and from school in the spring, I rode by that orange grove, got off my bike, and smelled the orange blossoms. What a treat! So fragrance has always been something I've embraced. But my most unique experience with fragrance came at a time that I least expected it. My husband and I and little son had relocated, and we were living in an apartment complex with some other families that had also relocated. The mothers and children all met at the pool, and we got to know each other while our children played in the water together. One of the little boys who was older, maybe 6 or 7, liked to draw and color pictures and then sell them to his neighbors to make a little extra cash once in a while. So, one day he knocked at my door and showed me the picture he had brought me, and I let him in the door. Then out of the clear blue he announced, “You know, your house smells different from everybody else's, a nice smell.” Really? What was his little mind thinking about, and what could it be? So I began pondering, what does my house smell like and how is it different from everyone else's in the neighborhood? It finally came to me that the day he came to my door was bread baking day, and the bread fragrance had permeated the house! Since that time other guests in our home have commented on the same thing. Interestingly, the reason I started making bread in the first place is that my grandmother's house always smelled like fresh bread baking, and we always had homemade bread every time we went to her house. So, even houses have a fragrance. And did you know that God identifies Himself with a fragrance? He really does! He mandated that His house, the Tabernacle, have an exclusive fragrance way back in the book of Exodus.

Toward the end of exodus, God revealed to Moses the blueprint for the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle was a large courtyard with a very special, exclusive, walled-in part called the sanctuary. In it were two parts: the holy place and the holy of holies. There was just one piece of furniture in the holy of holies, a golden ark of the covenant, where God met with His chosen representative, Aaron the High Priest, for the people. The holy place, however, was serviced by multiple priests that came in every day, and there were three pieces of furniture there. The first one was a small, long wooden table covered with pure gold, edged by a golden crown so nothing could fall off. On it were 12 loaves of fresh bread, one representing each of the tribes of Israel. The second piece of furniture was a very tall oil-burning lamp stand that was the source of light for the whole sanctuary, and it was solid gold. The third piece of furniture in the holy place was the altar of incense, and it was right in front of the entry curtain to the holy of holies. This small, wood altar, overlaid with pure gold, also had a small crown encircling the top. Everything was beautiful! And each piece of furniture in the holy place had a fragrance, however subtle! What combination of fragrances did God choose for His own personal fragrance? The first one, though muted, is fresh bread, (Ex 25:30) and the second one, even more faint, is pure olive oil beaten fine that's burning to give light from the lamp stand. (Ex 27:20) God didn't want any impurities in the fragrance of the holy place. And then the most special fragrance of all came from the altar of incense, oh my, what a special, beautiful fragrance; it was a God-given formula that only Aaronic priests could make for Tabernacle use, and if anyone else made it they would be cut off from all the tribes of Israel.(Ex 20:25-38) So God was very determined to keep His fragrance for Himself alone. There were even two uses for God's fragrance. One was a holy anointing oil that was used on all the Tabernacle furnishings as well as on the High priest’s garments. For the other, the spices alone were to be beaten very small and to be burned on the altar of incense before the curtain to the holy of holies, the place to meet God. God had a unique fragrance for His earthly dwelling, and He wanted His designated priests to exude that godly aroma.

Did you know that if you are a true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ that 1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God . . .?” And not only that, but did you know that you carry God's heavenly fragrance with you in your spirit, just as the priests of old carried it in their garments? Listen to what God revealed to Paul about a true believer’s fragrance in 2 Corinthians 2:14-15: “Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ....”

Can you believe that not only are our bodies God’s temple, but with His Spirit He gives us His own fragrance when we truly trust Him as our Savior from sin? We are a “savour of life,” “a sweet savour of Christ” to the world. What a privilege true believers have, the scent of eternal life, God's life—the aroma of heaven. Isn't that amazing! You may choose your own personal fragrance and the fragrance of your house in a variety of ways, but only God can give you His fragrance, the fragrance of the life of Christ. So, how spiritually fragrant are we to the world around us? And most importantly, does God detect and savor the sweet aroma of Christ emanating from my life? From yours? Let’s ask the Lord to make us especially fragrant and cause “us to triumph in Christ,” making “manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place” this summer and always!