Throughout the month of December, the Nugget will be featuring articles focused on important lessons in our Spiritual walk that we can learn from Christmas. This 11 part series features several different authors, but the focus is the same: How can the celebration of Christ’s birth help us in our daily walk with Christ? Today’s lesson is from Nugget Moderator and Author, Lynona Gordon Chaffart…
I was concerned last year that Christmas would not be the same. After all, our “out-west” kids couldn’t be there, and we had to “think outside the box” to even be able to share Christmas with my aging mom. And as I dutifully began preparing for the season, it was hard to get in to the season…
It was the Chinese houseguest we had last year that change things for me. Although she had been in Canada for the past four years and had come to recognize many of our Christmas traditions as “the Christmas feeling”, she had never really celebrated Christmas before. Everything was new and wonderous in her eyes. At first even her excitement didn’t get to me, but with each passing day and each enthusiastic comment, I slowly began to once again feel that Christmassy feeling that comes from contemplating the wonders of the Christ Child.
It was actually the day she commented about Christmas smells that did it for me. I was baking pumpkin muffins, and that spicy mix of nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and allspice permeated the air, prompting the enthusiastic comment from our house guest: “Ummm! It smells sooo much like Christmas!”
It made me think. First of all about Christmas… I had never really contemplated the thought before, but yes! The spicy scent was an odor we associate with Christmas! And as I sat there breathing in the wafting steam off my cup of Gingerbread Spice tea, I realized that it was, indeed, starting to feel a lot like Christmas!
We associate so much with the gift of smell. It enhances our ability to taste, and thus is a vital part of our enjoyment of food – Just ask someone who has lost their sense of smell and they will agree that food just doesn’t taste the same! It is also said that a lot of memory is stored up in our sense of smell. A simple waft, and we’re transported back in time. And the permeating smell of a room will often dictates whether or not we enter and how long we stay. A sweet-smelling place welcomes us to stay indefinitely, whereas a particular stench in the room will drive us away.
It made me think. What is the “odor” of Christ? What “smells” do people come to associate with Christians? Do we draw people in? Or do we push them away?
Of course I’ve made a jump here from a literal odor to a figurative one; but given the stark associations we make through our sense of smell, I don’t believe it is too long of a stretch. Someone who is filled with Christ’s Spirit draws others in. There is this aura of peace and joy, kindness and love, that is nearly irresistible; and just like the spicy smells associated with the Christmas season serve to draw us in to the Christmas spirit, this “aura” transports us away from the cares of life and draws us to God.
Still not buying the association between God and our sense of smell?Check out these texts:
“For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing…” (2 Cor. 2:15 ESV)
“As a pleasing aroma I will accept you, when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you have been scattered. And I will manifest my holiness among you in the sight of the nations.” (Ez. 20:41 ESV)
Such texts remind us that as Christians, we do put off a smell. Is this odor a “pleasing aroma”? Is it “the aroma of Christ to God”? Unfortunately, not all Christians always portrays such a drawing picture. We have our moments, yes, but much of the time it is hard to distinguish us from others in the world. We can be as mean and selfish as the next, and that kind of an “odor” will not draw others to Christ. Rather, it serves to drive them away!
As we enjoy the beautiful, spicy smells associated with Christmas this year, let’s let it remind us of our “spiritual odor”. Let’s all ask God to fill us with His Spirit, to mold and make us into “spicy” Christians — Christians with an “aura” of peace, joy, kindness and love – Christians that portray a picture of Christ that will draw others to Him!
In His love,
Lyn
Lynona Gordon Chaffart, Speech-Language Pathologist, mother of two adult boys, Author — “Aboard God’s Train — A Journey With God Through the Valley of Cancer”, Author and Moderator for The Nugget, a tri-weekly internet newsletter, Scriptural Nuggets, a website devoted to Christian devotionals and inspirational poems, The Illustrator, a four-times-a-week internet newsletter, and the Sermon Illustrator website, all with Answers2Prayer Ministries.
(To access the entire “Lessons From Christmas” mini-series, please click here.)