Did your worship stink yesterday or did it have a pleasant aroma? Think about that for a moment as we consider a product that many of us have in our homes.
Febreze.
The Febreze commercials have been interesting through the years. Do you remember the commercial where an overflowing trash can with rotting items had a Febreze stick on attached to the lid? Two blindfolded people were brought in, set in chairs around the trash can, and asked what they smelled. “I smell cedar. I smell fresh linens. It smells good,” they said with big smiles. How is this possible?
Febreze’s claim to fame is that other products cover up smells while theirs actually traps the odor producing molecules. Is that possible? Turns out, it is!
“It all comes down to the chemical composition of odors. Febreze really does trap those unpleasant smells, and it does so by deploying chemical compounds known as cyclodextrins. The centers of the funnel-shaped cyclodextrins are extremely hydrophobic, which means they attract other hydrophobic molecules, including those that are responsible for most aromas. When odor is emitted from molecules in the air, they also tend to stimulate receptors in the nose. As such, after spritzing some Febreze, those hydrophobic stinky scents get trapped inside the cyclodextrins, rendering them unable to reach those nose receptors. This leaves the intentionally hydrophilic perfumes added to the Febreze to flood your senses with more appealing scents.”1
Bad odors are trapped and replaced with good odors.
Now, let’s think back into Bible days. I would imagine that hygiene wasn’t the best. The climate was hot, and the clothing must have made a person hotter. That means lots of sweating and body odor in a day where Dove and Old Spice didn’t have antiperspirant products.
Let’s also imagine a group of people traveling the roads for a social gathering. The roads were not paved so there was lots of dust and dirt. And just think of all the animals that traveled the same road, leaving their road apples all over the place! It was customary to get your feet washed when entering a home but what about the rest of a person’s body? I would think that a gathering of people must have cast the aroma of a high school locker room after the fourth quarter of basketball played in a gymnasium without air conditioning. Can you catch a whiff of the scent that’s in the air?
On a particular day where this scenario became a reality, something amazing happened that overshadows what Febreze can accomplish. John 12:1-3 tells a story that you would have to smell to get the full picture. “Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead. (2) There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him. (3) Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.”
Mary’s pound of ointment was the Febreze of worship. It trapped the odors of sweat, animals, excrement, and dirt, replacing it with a smell that filled the house. Mary’s worship smells overtook the unpleasant smells of the day. In fact, it was so potent that the smell probably lingered for days – maybe even weeks.
Have we ever thought about this residual effect of worship? While we are in God’s presence, offering Him praise and worship, the unpleasant smells of daily life dissipate and disappear. If our worship stinks, then we walked out of the church services yesterday still smelling the aromas of a chaotic, confused, and sinful world. If our worship was a sweet aroma, we walked out of church and things didn’t look – or smell – quite so bad.
We don’t have to wait till Sunday to worship, either. Worship should be taking place from our hearts all through the day. Perhaps if we spent more time in the Lord’s presence instead of languishing in the world’s misery, we might find that our perspective and outlook on life would be different.
Let’s take the Psalmists invitation in Psalms 95:6 seriously today. It works better than a bottle of Febreze! “O come, let us worship and bow down: let us kneel before the LORD our maker.”
1https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/67437/does-febreze-really-trap-bad-odors
Images are taken from https://pixabay.com/, https://www.pexels.com/, or https://unsplash.com/images or created in Windows Copilot. According to the websites, they are Royalty Free and free to be used for our purposes.
