The Sweet Smell of Grace
Our strongest, most-lasting memories are tied to our sense of smell. The smell of honeysuckle immediately takes me back to elementary school because of the honeysuckle growing around the school. I don’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday, but vivid memories immediately come to mind when I pass honeysuckle.
You’ve had a similar experience, I’m sure.
- The smell of chocolate chip cookies baking takes you back to your grandmother’s house.
- The smell of an old book takes you back to your small-town library.
- The smell of antiseptic recalls a sad memory of walking a hospital corridor.
- The smell of Play-Doh takes you back to crafting animal figures in kindergarten. (BTW, if you really like that smell, you can now buy it as a perfume/cologne.)
Ever wonder what the world smelled like before all the automobile fumes? If that sounds pleasant, just remember that before the car we had the horse. In New York alone, those horses generated up to a million pounds of manure every day. Having a stuffy nose back then may have been a blessing.
Others have wondered what the world used to smell like, and they’re doing something about it. The European Union has funded a project called Odeuropa, which in an online database of scents ranging from the 16th to the 20th century. This does not come with a scratch-and-sense app by which you can stick your nose up to your screen and take a deep breath. Instead, they used AI to cull through countless documents to capture how smells were described, referenced, and experienced. It’s a lot of visual and text-related information.
OK, so just reading about smells doesn’t sound very exciting. (Ooh, there are 1,910 references to what a donkey smelled like!) But if you want a far more immersive experience, follow your nose to a local museum. In 2022, an exhibit at the University of Pennsylvania had an exhibit of smells. For this exhibit, self-proclaimed smell researcher Sissel Tolaas collected and mapped smells from around the world to build archives of “smell recordings.”
So what are you smelling? Scents like world currencies, vanilla, soil, sweat, and yes, even Tolaas’ own body odor. Hmm. Maybe I’ll stick with the online database.
What about you? If you were on display in a smell exhibit, what would you smell like?
During the first century, a victorious army would march through the city with a parade of the prisoners of war. The celebration included sweet fragrances that filled the air. To the victors, the sweet smell reminded them of what they had gained, but to the defeated—who were often being marched to their execution—that sweet aroma underscored their impending death.
Christ is the victor, and we—the aroma of Christ—cause different reactions in people. Those who choose to follow Christ are drawn to the sweet fragrance. Those who reject Christ are repelled, and that sweet smell is the smell of death to them.
“But thanks be to God, who always leads us in Christ’s triumphal procession and through us spreads the aroma of the knowledge of him in every place. For to God we are the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing” (2 Cor. 2:14-15).
You’re not a museum piece, but you are a masterpiece of God (Eph. 2:10) and you do put off an aroma—the aroma of Christ. As His children, let’s fill the air with something wonderful—the sweet smell of grace.
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Banner photo by Jeff Nissen on Unsplash.
