The Sense of Smell

Snow covers the ground outside my window, the sky a slate grey only slightly different in color from the earth below. My backyard view is of deciduous trees, all dark and skeletal in this middle of the winter time, and my neighbors' houses complete the somber color scheme.

Meanwhile, I have just washed and cut up a large kettle of apples from my root cellar-garage, and there are starting to be gurgling noises to indicate the simmering has begun. As I lift off the cover to stir the mix, the intense fragrance of apples, cider, fall, all but overwhelm me.

Suddenly I am reminded of the reds and coppers and brilliant yellows of the fall, of the sound and smell of crunchy, starting to mildew leaves underfoot. My favorite season of the year, all bundled up in a whiff of apples cooking.

In a few weeks, a Bible study group I lead will begin studying 2 Corinthians, and Paul uses aroma as a word picture of how our lives can impact the lives of those around us.

2 Corinthians 2:14-16

But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task?

 

What is the aroma that my life gives off, how am I sharing the knowledge of Christ to all those around me?  Is it "the pleasing aroma of Christ?"

 

When I went to the garage, there were a few apples in the bushel baskets that had already rotted. I hadn't been checking the stash for a few weeks, so the old "one bad apple spoils the whole batch" was starting to show its truth. I handpicked perhaps 2 pounds of these soft, moldering masses that were slowly sloshing down around the others. As I carried these up to add to the compost pile, the fragrance was totally different from that of their brethren that were now filling the house with fruity goodness. But even though the too, too ripe apples carried an unpleasant aroma, I knew that, should I deposit these squishy bundles in the right soil at the right time, they could bear fruit just as good as the ones now turning into applesauce. 

 

For now, I can luxuriate in the cider-y smells in my kitchen and be reminded that I have been given the opportunity to be a pleasant aroma of Christ. I just need to do it. 

 

"For the fruit of the Spirit is..." Galatians 5:22