A Pleasing Aroma

Thought on cultivating the scent of holiness

Out of all the weird side effects that come with being a woman, my PMS super-smell is one of the weirdest. Normally, I'd describe my sense of smell as 'pretty good.' I can smell when something's going off in the fridge, and I can smell the subtle differences between each of my vanilla-based perfumes, but I might not catch the fleeting whiff of body odour from someone outside on the street.

But once a month, my powers become supercharged. I smell everything—the rubber car tires on the pavement, the metallic edge of the water coming out of the shower pipes, the burnt crumbs on my toast, the lingering traces of soap on my hands, the big wooden cases of fruit ripening in the sun as I walk by my local corner shop... It's all at once magnificent and overwhelming. I am just easily led to dazzled awe as I'm led to nauseated disgust. It's like my sensors have been over-calibrated, and suddenly everything is shockingly intense. But it only lasts a couple days, and then I'm back to normal.

When it happened this month, it was a Sunday and I was on my way to check out a new church. I kept getting flashes of something awful—an acrid, chemical, stomach-turning smell. Of course, it was completely undetectable to Ollie. I felt like I was going crazy (but again, I’m used to my super-smell revealing undetectable things, so I wasn't too worried). I ripped open a packet of gum, let the mintiness soothe the unpredictable waves of yuck, and got on with the commute.

It was exciting to be visiting a new church—I'd heard a lot about it, but didn't quite know what to expect. Almost immediately, I could feel the earnest and genuine spirit of the worship. Whoever these people were, they were feeling the lyrics they were singing. The energy was so palpable that the pastor did the evangelist call before the sermon, and quite a few people dedicated their hearts to Jesus before we even got into analyzing any Bible text.

Here's when a weird thing got weirder. As soon as those people prayed the prayer (Jesus, I invite you into my heart to be the Lord of my life, or something along those lines), the weird smell went away.

Do y'all mind if a girl gets a little woo-woo up in here???? I believe someone's soul was cleansed that morning.

“Then burn the entire ram on the altar. It is a burnt offering to the Lord, a pleasing aroma, a food offering presented to the Lord.”

Exodus 29:18

“Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

Ephesians 5:1-2

In the Old Testament of the Bible (before Jesus was on the scene), God was full of instructions regarding sacrifice and cleanliness. The Jewish people were wrapped up doing all kinds of ceremonies and processes to be 'clean' enough to commune with God. In my understanding, it isn’t that God thinks He is better than everyone and wants people to fawn over him; rather, he is literally the embodiment of purity and goodness. He cannot coexist in the same space as unholiness, because his very nature is irrevocably divine. But because he loves us, he gave as many 'cleansing' instructions as possible so that we would be able to draw closer to Him. The sacrifices involved in this are thus a "pleasing aroma" to Him, because they are evidence of our efforts to connect with Him.

But Jesus changes everything. God knows that our humanity will always fall short of perfection, and so he sends Jesus to be the perfect sacrifice. With his divine death and resurrection, every human shortcoming is accounted for—the debt is paid, and our souls are won. In this post-Jesus world, we don’t need to go through a million ceremonies to earn the right to be with God; we just need to recognize the story of Jesus and accept the gift of our salvation. Now, the ‘pleasing aroma’ is produced by the way we live out Christ-like love in our everyday lives.

I know this sounds like a lot of religious jargon... and again, I'm not an expert. This is just how I piece things together in my mind. The health of our souls is an incredibly intimate and personal matter, and one that requires careful attention and fine-tuning over a lifetime.

I also want to be careful about how I explain this, because I don't necessarily think that everyone who goes to church has a 'cleansed' soul and everyone who doesn't go to church is 'unclean'. It’s not a black and white thing; souls are invisible and complicated.

But I do think that there is something undeniably pure, precious, and radiant about a clean soul. Have you ever met someone that shines with positivity and innocence? Someone that wholeheartedly chases goodness in every corner of their life? They are beautiful people to behold.

As humans, we may aim to emulate this purity in our own lives, but messiness often gets in the way. Life is traumatic. Life is hard. And many of the bad things that happen to us are entirely out of our control.

But that's one of the reasons I love Jesus. He was totally human, and totally perfect. Imagine going through life as your best self, in every single moment. Jesus was the best friend. The best son. The best brother. The best leader. The best advocate. The best example. The perfect sacrifice.

When we give our lives to Jesus, we are acknowledging Him as the benchmark for goodness and inviting divine help into the eternal process of workshopping our souls. We leave behind our old lives and step into a new way of being; one that doesn't leave us alone in our quest for goodness, but instead highlights the nearness of God and His ever-present aid.

So to get back to my woo woo nonsense: I think someone's soul was struggling in church that day, and I think that they invited God to come in and cleanse them. The stench of a lost soul gave way to the pleasing aroma of devotion. And I think that's a beautiful thing.

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I don't know how many roads there are to heaven. I don't know all the rules of sanctification, and I don't know how many exceptions or loopholes or alternatives there are. All I know is that a corrupt soul reeks of tragedy—violence begets violence, greed drives brokenness, and a life lived without love is hardly a life at all. But God has the power to cleanse and renew even the murkiest of souls, and that process is beautiful to witness.

It's one of the reasons why water baptisms have been such a powerful tradition throughout Christian history; the external 'cleansing' with water mimics our own internal renewal. I was baptised at the age of 6 in the ocean, and I still look back quite fondly on the memory.

So while I may not always smell good in a literal way (like in this very moment, I could definitely use a shower, and will probably jump in as soon as I finish writing), I hope that the course of my life will produce a pleasing aroma to the Lord. I want to get to heaven and ask God, “What scent lingered over my life?” Maybe bright and floral lavender? The cool freshness of a seaside breeze? The cozy warmth of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies?

As a result of all this pondering, I've been much more cognizant of the aroma I cultivate in my own home. I don't just want to vacuum and put some essential oils in the diffuser and call it a day. I want to pray in every room and sing worship music. I want to invite the Holy Spirit to cleanse every nook and cranny of this space. I want people to visit and wonder, what is that pleasing aroma? It smells divine.