The Aroma You Carry

“For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.”
— 2 Corinthians 2:15

When I was in high school, my Poppy, my mom’s dad, would sometimes ask me to come stay with him.

Granny had passed away, and he didn’t like being alone.

Poppy had been a history teacher, so naturally, we watched Jeopardy! together. We even had our own little game. If I could answer Alex Trebek’s question before the contestants did, Poppy would give me a dollar.

I loved those nights.

But Poppy smoked.

I never did.

And every time I left his house, you knew exactly where I had been.

It was in my clothes. It was in my hair. I didn’t have to light a cigarette. I didn’t even have to touch one.

I had simply spent enough time in the room that what filled his house came home with me.

That is what proximity does.

Spend enough time around something, and eventually you carry its aroma.

Paul uses an extraordinary phrase in 2 Corinthians 2. He says that followers of Jesus are “the pleasing aroma of Christ.”

Not simply that we talk about Jesus.

Not merely that we believe in Jesus.

We carry His aroma.

Which raises an interesting question:

What does Jesus smell like?

Not literally, of course.

But if Christ has an aroma—if His life produces something noticeable when it enters a room—what are the notes?

Grace would certainly be there.

Compassion.

Truth without cruelty.

Strength without arrogance.

Holiness without self-righteousness.

A willingness to kneel.

A willingness to forgive.

A willingness to give Himself away.

Jesus had an unusual way of making broken people feel welcome while making comfortable people reconsider everything.

Children moved toward Him.

Outcasts ate with Him.

Religious leaders sometimes became furious with Him.

Sinners found hope near Him.

There was something unmistakable about His presence.

And Paul says that somehow, now, we carry that aroma.

That can feel intimidating.

Because there are days when I am fairly certain what I am spreading does not smell much like Jesus.

Impatience has an aroma.

So does pride.

Bitterness does too.

You can almost smell insecurity when it enters a conversation because it needs to win, needs to be noticed, needs to defend itself.

Fear has a way of filling a room.

So does anger.

We all carry something.

The question is where it came from.

I learned that lesson at Poppy’s house long before I had language for it:

We begin to smell like where we’ve been.

Spend enough time around a campfire and your clothes smell like smoke. Work all day in a kitchen and you carry the food home with you. Hold a baby long enough and somehow you smell like whatever happened to that baby earlier in the day.

You do not have to work very hard at it.

You were simply close.

Maybe that is part of the secret to becoming the aroma of Christ.

We often work very hard at trying to act more like Jesus.

Be more patient.

Be more generous.

Control our temper.

Say the right thing.

And those things matter.

But Christianity was never meant to become spiritual cologne—something we spray over whatever is actually going on underneath.

The aroma of Christ is not manufactured.

It is transferred.

We stay close to Jesus.

We sit with His words.

We allow His grace to confront our shame.

We let His mercy soften what has become hard.

We watch the way He treats people.

We remember again what He carried to the cross for us.

And slowly, sometimes without even realizing it, what belongs to Him begins clinging to us.

His patience changes ours.

His generosity loosens our grip.

His forgiveness changes the way we remember the people who hurt us.

His love changes the atmosphere we create.

That is why spiritual formation is more than behavior modification.

You can imitate the motions of Jesus from a distance.

But you carry His aroma by staying near Him.

So here is a question worth sitting with today:

Have I been with Jesus?

Not just: Did I go to church?

Not: Did I read something religious?

Not: Did I know the right answer?

But have I been near enough to Jesus for something of Him to cling to me?

And when people have been close to me, what have they been close to?

Have they encountered peace?

Have they experienced grace?

Did they feel like they needed to perform, or did they feel safe enough to tell the truth?

Did my presence make a difficult day heavier or lighter?

Did I leave them with more hope than I found them with?

Those questions are not invitations to shame.

They are invitations to proximity.

Because when the scent is wrong, the answer is not to spray harder.

Go back to the source.

Get close again.

There is something beautiful about a fragrance that lingers after someone has left the room.

There is something even more beautiful about a life that does the same.

May people encounter something of Jesus because they encountered us.

May His grace cling to our conversations.

May His kindness remain after we leave.

May His love be the unmistakable note people remember.

We begin to smell like where we’ve been.

So stay close enough to Jesus that people catch His scent on you.

Your life leaves a scent trail. Be fragrant.