This baseball memory came back to me the other day as I was in a hospital corridor. Sunlight was streaming though patient windows. Spring was in the air\u2013until suddenly it wasn\u2019t. For some reason the door to the surgery recovery unit was closed. As I pushed it open, I soon learned why. Wafting down the corridor was an acrid stench that almost felled me. It was like bowel gas mixed with something infectious, like the purulent stinky drainage from a boil or the rot of an infected abdominal wound. It slapped me in the face and drove away all other thoughts. I started to hold my breath as I exited the unit. Soon I was back outside in the sunlight and the fresh blossom-scented spring air. <\/p>\n
The word \u201cfoul\u201d has layers of meanings that are worthy of reflection. When we go astray (like foul balls) we have deviated from God\u2019s intended trajectory for us. It has happened to all of us: \u201call we like sheep have gone astray\u201d, as you may remember from Handel\u2019s famous chorus which is taken straight from Isaiah 53. Paul in Romans 3 also reminds us that we have all \u201cfallen short\u201d of God\u2019s glory. <\/p>\n
What is worse, though, is that our misdeeds make us, in a sense, smell bad\u2013we \u201cstink to high heaven\u201d as an old saying goes. In Isaiah 65, God says the following of his wayward people. Here I use the Living Bible translation, for its descriptiveness:
\n\u201cThese people are a stench in my nostrils, an acrid smell that never goes away.\u201d
\nWhen we stray from God\u2019s will, we become like that odor I encountered in the hospital. Or like my dog, who sometimes on walks through wooded parks will suddenly dart into some leaves and roll in the liquifying remains of some dead rodent, thereby acquiring an awful odor. (When this happens, he finds that he very quickly gets some kind of bath).<\/p>\n
But there is a promise to the faithful. Through the prophet Hosea, God exhorts His people to return to Him, and promises to make Israel smell good: \u201cHis splendor will be like an olive tree,
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0his fragrance like a cedar of Lebanon.\u201d In Ezekiel God says, \u201cAs a pleasing aroma I will accept you, when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you have been scattered. And I will manifest my holiness among you in the sight of the nations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blast forward four centuries to the New Testament, and we find that the apostle Paul used the idea of fragrant burnt offerings as a metaphor for the Christian life. He asked his readers to become \u201cliving sacrifices\u201d\u2013they are to be as consumed by passion for the things of God as to be on fire, and as dead to self as the animals consumed by that fire on the altar. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing, to one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things?\u201d The Living Bible clarifies verse 16: \u201cTo those who are not being saved, we seem a fearful smell of death and doom, while to those who know Christ we are a life-giving perfume.\u201d<\/p>\n So, don\u2019t be like my dog, or like that festering sore. Instead turn from worldly ways and embrace God\u2019s love; let God bathe away your stench. (Though I won\u2019t pursue this further in this little meditation, I will mention in passing to any non-Christian readers that the Christian initiation rite of baptism is a rich metaphor for such a spiritual bath\u2013consider looking into this further). <\/p>\n I\u2019ll conclude with another passage: \u201cTherefore 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.\u201d <\/body><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Thwack!. I am enjoying a beautiful spring day, attending a minor league baseball game with my family. My attention is diverted toward my bratwurst when suddenly a shadow seems to appear above me. Is it a bird? Then fans around me gasp and lunge as the shape\u2013 now clearly baseball sized\u2013appears to be zooming toward […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[369],"tags":[803,804,805,792,802,793,795,807,806,791,428,228,794],"class_list":["post-1689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theological-ideas","tag-2-corinthians-214-16","tag-acrid-stench","tag-all-we-like-sheep-have-gone-astray","tag-aroma","tag-ephesians-5-1-2","tag-foul","tag-foul-ball","tag-isaiah-53","tag-romans-323","tag-sacrifice","tag-saint-paul","tag-sin","tag-smell"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1689"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1704,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1689\/revisions\/1704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/theundergroundchurch.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n(2 Corinthians 2:14-16, Holy Bible<\/em>, English Standard Version). <\/p>\n
\n(Ephesians 5:1-2)<\/p>\n