Loading...Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God stinks to high heaven. Of heaven.
Have you ever been around someone whose personal aroma is so memorable that when you walk away you still have the smell of them on you? Maybe it’s because of a pungent cologne, freshly cut grass, stinky boy feet, or a cup of coffee. Every time I smell Listerine and Old Spice I think of my grandpa.
There’s a reason the washing machine was invented and every day I thank God I have access to one in my own home. I have kept one habit every year since I can remember. I like to get everything clean for Easter. Today, after church, I will bring home my personal church vestments to launder. I want to look sparkly clean for Holy Week and Easter. I have practiced this tradition for over 20 years.
Last year, as I was buttoning the clean vestments on hangers, I was proudly admiring how they looked as good as new even after so many years of wear. And I was struck with this vision: I saw Mary, mother of our Lord, cleaning and preparing her family’s laundry for Passover. I don’t know if she actually did that — the Bible doesn’t say — but I imagined her starting a couple of weeks in advance to make sure that all clothing for her family was sparkly clean, if not brand spanking new. Then that vision broke my heart as I saw all the places her son would take his clean Passover suit. Or, as it’s described in Holy Scripture, his seamless tunic. (John 19:23)
Of course, Jesus would wear his tunic to the Passover feast. It’s fibers would absorb the aroma of the lamb, the unleavened bread, the wine. And holiday dinner is what one’s best suit is intended for. But then Jesus would wear his good suit to the garden. Did he get grass stains on his knees praying in Gethsemene? (Matthew 26:39 — he threw himself on the ground.) What night-blooming flowers grow in Jerusalem this time of year and would their pollen leave their perfume on his tunic?
And then all kinds of things that are NOT intended for one’s Sunday best would happen later on the night of Maundy Thursday and in the early morning of Good Friday.
Jesus’ nice fresh tunic would be in the path of the fire smoke from the courtyard where Peter warmed himself. Jesus could smell the smoke and hear Peter’s denial.
Even though it was cold can't you see Jesus sweating from the stress of the arrest.
But light smoke and sweat can be washed out.
What about the smell of leather? From the whip of cords that was used to flog Jesus.
What about saliva from those who spat upon him?
I think the tunic could be salvaged with the right detergent if that’s where it stopped. But it doesn’t stop. Jesus is covered in blood from the flogging, from the crown of thorns, from falling while carrying the cross.
At this point, his clothes are likely ruined. But there will be more sweating from his exertion of carrying the cross. And if the wood of the cross is freshly cut, the scent of that will stick, possibly even with splinters. I don’t regard the soldier who won the roll of this dice as having received a prize — rather a mess. How will the stains come out?
It’s easy for me to dismiss the event of our Lord’s execution as the inevitable result of human depravity and that all the world is going to hell in a handbasket. Nihilism is one of the tidy solutions to the problem of evil I like to use until I remember what happened to that tunic before Jesus ever even put it on. Let’s rewind the tape to what happens in John Chapter 12. Look at it again.
First, Jesus himself would be covered in the fragrance of friendship. (John 12)
Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. 2 There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. 3 Mary [sister of Martha and Lazarus] took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. 4 But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, 5 “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” 6 (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 7 Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. 8 You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”
After this show of affection from Mary and disaffection from Judas, Judas goes to his secret conspiracy meeting. It’s very likely that Judas, Jesus, and for that matter anyone who had been in the room with the nard, would smell like nard for days. The soldiers who roughly handled Jesus would smell like nard. Simon of Cyrene who helped carry the cross would smell like nard. The person who buried Judas’ body would have smelled nard.
Secondly, and most important, the most powerful smell of all, even more powerful than a grandmother’s dimestore perfume, would be in every fiber of that tunic. Because of this one smell alone it wouldn’t matter how senseless Jesus was beaten, His purpose, His incarnation, would be constantly reinforced during His agony by his olfactory senses.
What smell is even stronger than nard and more powerful than even Listerine with Old Spice? Jesus’ tunic was, in my vision, touched and cared for by his mother. Mary’s mom-smell, whatever brand of soap she used, would still be in it and fill the last breath of his nostrils with the memory — not just of all the heartbreaking cruelty of sin — but also of His unbreakable bond with her.
When we say our prayers you have a choice. We can feel bitter about the brutality of the human condition. That brutality can bring out the fighter in a person, even make us feel stronger. Or we can say our prayers with gratitude, humbled and rendered weak by the selfless kindnesses of the same species enslaved by the heartbreaking cruelty of sin. Or we may wonder in prayer, “If only the world was just full of rotten people that would explain everything.”
But it’s not. The world is not filled with rotten people. God filled the world with free people. We make ourselves slaves to the stink of sin. God grants us new clothing, to put on Christ with every fiber of His being, a new creation.
note: Preacher inhales through her nose, deeply satisfied.
