Fragrant Sacrifice

Thanksgiving is coming.  It seems like the merchants cannot even let one holiday get close before they are putting out their wares for the next Holiday.  Nonetheless, it pushes our minds to think toward that time of year when traditions with family and food fill our minds.  One of the most potent “memory evokers” is our sense of smell.  Connected to the limbic system, certain smells can elicit strong memories.  Maybe you too have memories associated with Thanksgiving, of walking into a house where cooking was going on and experiencing the wonderful scents from the food being prepared.  The aroma would fill the house, and even now, at times, I experience a smell that takes me back to the warmth and security of those times.

In John 12, a picture is painted of Jesus having supper with Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead.  Mary and Martha were there, Martha serving the food in her characteristic way.  Mary, however, did something quite unusual.  She anointed Jesus’ feet with an expensive perfume and then wiped his feet with her hair.  In verse three it says, “…and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”  This perfume was a sacrifice.  In fact, in the same passage, Judas, who would later betray Jesus, feigns concern that the perfume was used in this way, stating that it could have been sold “for 300 denarii and given to the poor.” (However, his motivation was not really concern for the poor but for the treasury he often pilfered.)  We are told that this perfume might have been a whole year’s wages, yet Mary chose to spend it on Jesus, and the fragrance filled the whole house.  Her gift was a reflection of her thankfulness for the miracle Jesus had performed in raising her brother from the dead. 

What are we sacrificing that creates a sweet fragrance in our houses, so that the atmosphere is permeated with the love and devotion that is pleasing to God?  Do we give to our churches with an attitude of thanksgiving, pouring out the sacrifice of praise?

Let us choose to be thankful.  Let us daily bring to Him our sacrifice, and may all our spaces be filled with the fragrance of it.