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This Really Stinks: Scents of Life and Death
A sermon by Dr. Scott Spencer
First Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia
Sunday, June 10, 2007
John 11:38-44; 12:1-8
Among our five senses, none is keener than our
sense of smell—although my wife wonders about mine. We go through this little
ritual several times a year: she asks, “Can you smell that?” I can tell from
her expression that it’s not a good odor. It concerns her—something musty or
moldy, gassy or smoky, gamey or sweaty. It’s faint but perceptible to her alert
nose. But she wants my confirmation—“Don’t you smell that?”
I almost always say, “No dear,”
not because I’m messing with her (although I’m not beyond that) but because I
really don’t smell it. We go back and forth, each getting increasingly more
irritated, and then we just drop it until the next odiferous episode.
I’ve come to accept that I’m not
very good with subtle scents. But I do pick up the BIG SMELLS loud and
clear—the sharp pungency of skunk or manure or Texas oil refineries, BUT ALSO
the rapturous aroma of fresh baked bread, honeysuckle, or fine perfume. I get
the strong odors on both ends of the spectrum.
It’s really quite amazing the
range of smells available to us (even the nasally challenged like myself): sweet
and sour smells, fragrant and rancid, spanning the gamut from life to death.
In Mohsin Hamid’s wonderful recent novel,
The Reluctant Fundamentalist, the narrator tells his story to a dinner
companion at a café in Lahore, Pakistan. From time to time, he spices his tale
with comments about the local surroundings—like this poignant passage describing
odors in the café.
Ah, I see that you have detected
a scent. Nothing escapes you; your senses are as acute as those of a fox in the
wild. It is rather pleasant, is it not? Yes, you are right: it is
jasmine. It comes . . . from the table beside ours, where that family has just
taken their seats for dinner.
What a contrast: the paleness of
those [jasmine] buds—strung with needle and thread into a fluffy
bracelet—against the darkness of that lady’s skin. And what a contrast, again:
the delicacy of their perfume against the robust smell of roasting meat! It is
remarkable indeed how we human beings are capable of delighting in the mating
call of a flower while we are surrounded by the charred carcasses of our fellow
animals—but then we are remarkable creatures.
Perhaps it is in our nature to recognize
subconsciously the link between mortality and procreation—between . . . the
finite and the infinite [77-78].
We are remarkable creatures indeed—not least in
our capacity to smell death and life, often at the same time. We are remarkable
creatures made in the image of God, who after the flood, “smelled the pleasing
odor” of Noah’s sacrifice and vowed never to destroy every living creature by
water again.
Ironically, however, this
“pleasing odor” God whiffs comes from Noah’s burnt offerings of one of
every clean animal and bird that had come out of the ark. The fragrance of “the
charred carcasses of our fellow animals”—as Hamid puts it. Strange, eerie,
even, and not a little disturbing—but remarkable all the same.
Our main text from John 11-12 features
commingled scents of life and death—powerful odors from the most pleasant to the
most putrid. The numbers tell the tale.
Lazarus has been in the family
tomb four days when Jesus orders the stone rolled away. Politely, but
firmly, sister Martha does the math for Jesus —“Lord, four days dead
means decay has already set in. The spices we used to anoint his body only go
so far. After four days, the stench will be quite disgusting and
degrading to our brother’s body.”
Jesus is not deterred, however.
The tombstone comes off, the terrible stench wafts out, and Jesus prays—with or
without holding his nose. And suddenly—remarkably—four-day-old death gives way
to new life. Lazarus comes out in his grave clothes, smelling to high heaven no
doubt—but nobody cares now. The spring-like fragrance of fresh life deodorizes
the entire scene.
Speaking of sweet fragrance, our
next episode—a dinner party in Bethany at Lazarus’ home—features sister Mary’s
anointing Jesus’ feet with perfume. But not with a dab or two, but
rather—notice the numbers again—a pound of pure, costly nard, about 12
ounces. Imagine a soft drink can full of a rich perfume dumped entirely
on Jesus’ feet and pooling in a puddle around him. The text says, “The house
was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” I should think so.
Why does Mary do this? To
express her deep love for Jesus, certainly, but more than that—Jesus interprets
Mary’s action as a kind of pre-anointing for his burial. It seems that Mary,
somehow sensing that Jesus’ death was imminent, had purchased this expensive
perfume to anoint his corpse. But at this dinner, she chooses not to wait for
his death, but rather to anoint him NOW while he’s still alive and can
appreciate her gesture.
Maybe Mary hopes if she goes ahead and uses up
the perfume she bought for Jesus’ burial, that would somehow fool the forces of
death—I’ve already “embalmed” him, so leave him alone.
I don’t know . . . but in any
case her filling the house with the robust fragrance of perfume creates at
atmosphere of joy and vitality that overcomes, at least for the moment, any sad
prospects of death and despair.
So both stories—the one at
Lazarus’ tomb, the other in his home—although featuring opposite smells and the
specter of death, ultimately leave the fresh scent of hope and life in the air .
. . BUT not without resistance.
Interestingly, each case presents
a negative voice or, should we say, a sensitive nose that detects a bad
odor—something that’s not right, something with Jesus in
particular, that he needs to answer for.
In the first scene Martha raises
the objection we’ve already mentioned: “Lord, already there is a stench because
he has been dead four days.” But there’s more behind this remark than just a
smell check. These four days are symptomatic of something bigger that stinks in
this whole incident from both Martha and Mary’s perspective.
Earlier the same day in chapter
11, when Jesus first arrived in Bethany, the first words Martha and Mary each
said (at different times) were: “Lord, if you’d been here, my brother would not
have died.” Although a confession of faith—“Lord, we believe you could have
healed Lazarus”—this is also a confrontation of failure—“You loved
Lazarus. You love us. So why didn’t you come sooner? Where were you when you
when we needed you?”
That may seem a bit unfair. Even
in our jet-set age, sometimes, despite best intentions, you just can’t get to a
dying loved one’s side before it’s too late. But in this case, more is involved
than complicated travel arrangements.
We don’t know Jesus’ exact
location, but the previous chapter indicates he was just across the Jordan River
where John had earlier been baptizing. We might estimate Jesus was a day’s or
so journey from Lazarus’ home in Bethany. In any event—here’s the curious
part—when word of Lazarus’ terrible illness reached him, he deliberately
“stayed two days longer in the place where he was” (11:6).
He didn’t drop everything and
rush to Bethany. Even if he had, he might not have come in time. But still,
this rather lackadaisical delay is perplexing—with the final result that he
didn’t get to Bethany until it’s way too late—four days into the noxious
decay of Lazarus’ corpse.
Now, to be sure, there’s a
purpose to Jesus’ procrastination. When he finally tells his disciples it’s
time to go to visit Lazarus, Jesus knows Lazarus has already died—and he’ss not
very upset about it. He says: “Let’s go see our ‘sleeping’ friend and wake him
up.” The disciples don’t quite get it, so he spells it out for them: “Lazarus
is DEAD (D-E-A-D). But you know what—I’m glad I wasn’t there to prevent this—so
you fellows might believe more strongly in me.”
Jesus already anticipates raising
Lazarus from the dead. He knows it’s going to happen. Four days in the
tomb?—not a problem. And, of course, Jesus does bring Lazarus back to life,
providing the disciples a marvelous faith lesson they’ll never forget.
Good for them. But what about
poor Martha and Mary? What about their long, tormenting four days of
grief? What about Lazarus for that matter? What, if anything, was he aware of
during his post-mortem hiatus? Well none of this really matters, does it? All
is well and forgotten when Lazarus comes hopping or rolling out of the tomb
(remember, his hands and feet were still wrapped up when he “came out”).
It’s great we have a happy
ending—a final influx of fresh air—but those four long preceding days cannot be
easily forgotten. Their foul odor still lingers in the atmosphere. “If only
you’d been here we wouldn’t have gone through all this.”
If only, if only . . . how many
times have we said that? Achh . . . if only I’d done this or not done
that—things would be a lot different. If only you had done this; if only
you had been there. If only, God, you had acted sooner . . . if
only You had stepped in and done something—we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Our frustration with God’s sense
of timing—with Christ’s “hour,” as this gospel describes it—is one of our
greatest spiritual struggles. That cynical writer of Ecclesiastes—who sometimes
is a bit over the top—hits the nail on the head here, I think.
You’ll recall the familiar text
in Ecclesiastes 3—“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter
under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die ... a time to weep and a time
to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance,” and so on—a total of 14 couplets
about time’s ebb and flow.
The text then concludes: “God has
made everything suitable for its time.” God has it all scheduled. Moreover,
“God has put a sense of past and future into our minds.” Made in God’s image we
instinctively sense something about God’s timetable ... Yet—here’s the
kicker—“we cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the
end.” We know God has a purpose for every moment—but most of the time we don’t
know what that purpose is.
That bothers the author of
Ecclesiastes to no end—and if we’re honest, it bothers us too. We’re the
only species of God’s creatures advanced enough to contemplate the passage of
time and even our own mortality—but we’re not advanced enough to know for
certain what tomorrow will bring or when we’re going to die. Is that a blessing
or a curse? I’m not sure sometime.
But I am sure we need to live
not in a past we cannot change or a future we cannot control—but in the present
God graciously gives us—God’s eternal NOW. We need to waste little of our
precious time worrying about what might have been “if only” that had happened
OR what might be around the bend “if only” this falls into place. Rather
than “if only,” we need to focus on “what now”—what does this fresh moment offer
us?
The same old same old? Not
necessarily. Dare we live and believe in a promising NOW? At Lazarus’ tomb,
Jesus reminds Martha—“Didn’t I tell you that if you believed, you would see the
glory of God?” Well, this is it—this is that moment, Martha—four stinking
days after Lazarus’ death—but here it is. Forget the math; forget the
biology. Take a deep, deep breath .... Ahh, can you smell that, Martha?
That’s the fresh scent of renewed life, the fragrance of God’s glory right here
at this grave, right now at this hour.
“Lazarus, come out and join us
NOW. . . . And the rest of you, quit standing there with jaws dropped. Loose him
and let him go. Don’t leave him all tied up. He—and we—need to walk and run,
jump and dance, and live this moment to the fullest.”
This life-affirming emphasis
carries into the table scene in the family’s home. But again it’s resisted.
This time Judas rather than Martha raises the objection, and this time the
problem is not how long Jesus took to arrive, but how much
expensive ointment he allows Mary to pour on his feet.
The cost especially
distresses Judas: “Lord, why was this perfume not sold for 300 denarii [about a
year’s wages] and the money given to the poor?” Again it’s a calculation
issue: 4 days . . . 300 denarii . . . 5 loaves, 2 fishes, whatever—Jesus
doesn’t add things up like we do. He’s very comfortable with the “new math”—his
math—which often does not compute with our expectations.
Although the narrator indicates
that treasurer Judas is being disingenuous here (he cares more about his own
pocket than the poor)—he still has a point. Jesus, we’ve got a lot of
impoverished people barely getting by, and you’ve been a great champion of the
poor. Couldn’t this money have been put to better use than your own comfort and
pleasure? (300-denarii foot treatments, 400-dollar haircuts, a 28,000 square
foot home don’t quite fit the “champion of the poor” model).
And Jesus’ response—“You always
have the poor with you, but you do not always have me”—sounds like a
self-important brush-off. It’s all about ME—not those ubiquitous, pesky poor
folk.
But that’s not Jesus’
point. Jesus doesn’t have a dime to his name; he doesn’t buy this expensive
perfume or commission Mary’s salon service. It just happens. Jesus is
manifestly NOT about “ME” and what is poured out for HIM. He pours his life out
for others, not least the poor and disenfranchised.
It’s not about “ME.” But
again—it IS about NOW—THIS MOMENT confronting us. This is a poignant moment of
celebrating life: Lazarus has returned from the dead, for goodness’
sake. We thought he was gone and now he’s here talking and eating and laughing
with us. Let’s enjoy his company and not take him for granted.
This is also a poignant moment of
demonstrating love: Mary’s overcome with love for Jesus and she can’t
contain herself—she has to let it flow. She knows she may not have another
chance—and she’s not going to let this moment slip by. Love makes you a little
crazy some time—makes you go over the top, a tad extravagant . . .
. . . That’s OK, Jesus says.
Leave her alone. The time is short and the time is right for Mary to show how
much she loves me. This may indeed be her last chance—and, by the way: the more
she loves me, the more she will love the poor as I do and help them as I have.
(and there will ample opportunities to do that after I’m gone).
Poignant moments—catching the
revitalizing scent of life and love amid the stench of destruction and
discrimination all around us.
Poignant now moments—like
this moment, right now—for us. Don’t resist it. Exhale all your
doubt and despair. And then inhale a deep, fresh, cleansing breath of God’s
living and loving Spirit. God’s fragrance fills this house and at this moment.
Take it in with joy and hope. Amen.
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