Mahatma
Gandhi once said to a Christian missionary: “Let us think of the bulk of
your people … Do they spread the perfume of their lives? That to me is the sole
criterion. All I want them to do is live Christian lives, not to annotate
them.”* When I read this I thought Gandhi may have been acquainted with
Paul’s statement in 2 Cor 2:14, “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always
leads us in triumphal procession and through us spreads the fragrance from
knowing him.”
There is
something very attractive about some aromas. I can remember when the Franz
bread bakery was located about where Matt Knight arena is today. The delicious
smell of freshly baked bread spreading throughout the University district
attracted many students who would buy warm bread and take it back to their
dorms for late night parties. Also, I remember reading about a church that
wanted to have a special communion service. Early on a Sunday morning a few
people came to the kitchen, which was located near the sanctuary, like ours is.
They proceeded to bake bread and timed it so that the wonderful aroma of fresh
bread permeated the sanctuary when church began.
Gandhi
spoke about the “perfume of Christian lives,” and Paul wrote about Christians
spreading the “fragrance from knowing Christ.” It’s a beautiful metaphor of how
evangelism can be done in a pleasing and attractive way. But what, exactly, is
this “fragrance,” this “aroma” that Christians carry into the world? Can it be
defined more precisely?
Paul
does this for us in his only other use of the metaphor. It is found in
Ephesians 5:2 where he says, Live in love as Christ loved us and gave
himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” The fragrance
of a loving, self-giving, sacrificial offering made by Jesus Christ is our
model.
Its
been said that Christians should live like Christ, look like Christ, love like
Christ, and serve like Christ. All of that is true, and all of it can be
summarized by simply saying, “Christians should smell like Christ.” Have we put
on Christ so that we smell like him or do we spread a moldy, rotting, decidedly
offensive aroma by our lives?
Nothing
attracts us to the table more than the smell of fresh baked warm bread, and
nothing attracts others to Christ more than the aroma of a loving, sacrificial,
Christ-like life. The Lord’s Supper, this communion, reminds us of his fragrant
offering and invites us to drench our lives in the perfume of his life.
*M. J. Gandhi, The Message of Jesus Christ, ed. Anand T. Hingorani (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhaven, 1986), 44.
