Do I stink?

I often jog around my community.  Since it is suburban, there is a nice balance of development and wilderness.  As such, I enjoy the safety of civilization as well as the splendor of creation while on my excursions.  There is an unfortunate condition, though, which cannot be avoided under these circumstances-- roadkill.  Quite often I will spot some sad creature who met a tremendously violent end.  The range of animals I've seen are as small as a simple mole to a great and majestic buck.  One thing these animals all share in common postmortem is that terrible stench of death.  Did I mention I live in the South?  The warm weather is not a kindness at these times.

Please excuse these macabre images; I want to illustrate something important.  While I am a long way off, the deep breaths required for running invite that odor right into my lungs.  Repulsion and nausea provoke me to scour the terrain for the sight of the offender.  Sometimes the lifeless animal is very close and startles me with disgust.  On some occasions it takes me a seemingly unreasonable amount of time to finally discover the source of that terrible aroma.  Once I have found it, my response is invariable to flee with all my might as my heart pounds powerfully.  The sight and smell of death are fearful; the words of my mind say, "Leah, you were not meant to see death."

None of us were meant to see death.  The story of creation unfolds to reveal God's purpose for man: to enjoy each others' company eternally.  All too soon, the first two people wander into rebellion quite mindless of who they are.  They want to redefine themselves and in doing so, they redefine all of humanity's relationship to God.  The rebellion was classified as sin, and the punishment for sin was death.

Skip ahead a few chapters and a lot of theology.  Christ comes to restore life.  He is the divine resuscitator bringing us back to life from spiritual death.  I have not always understood what spiritual life and death are.  Spiritual death is different than physical death; all our bodies still die.  Though Christ has the power to return individuals to physical life from death; he demonstrates this only several times in the gospels.  This was not his goal; it just is a visible example of what he does spiritually for all who seek him.  His true plan is to transplant the stone cold hearts of men out of their chests before they physically perish and implant a living heart of flesh. This new heart figuratively joins the heart of Christ to the hearts of men.  Jesus is a literal lifeline to God. And though the external will perish, be buried, and waste away; the internal has become eternal once again.

So maybe you can imagine my confusion when I read this passage from 2 Corinthians 2:14-17 (NIV & emphasis added by me):

 But thanks be to God, who always leads us as captives in Christ’s triumphal procession and uses us to spread the aroma of the knowledge of him everywhere.  For we are to God the pleasing aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.  To the one we are an aroma that brings death; to the other, an aroma that brings life. And who is equal to such a task?  Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, as those sent from God.

I am both alive physically and alive spiritually (because of Jesus).  How is it that I can be the repugnant and nauseating smell of death to some?  This is a powerful explanation for how disturbed unbelievers can be to the message of the gospel.  Like my reaction to the stench of dead animals, I often witness the culture cry out against the mere mention of God, Jesus, or prayer.  My heart aches when I see fellow Christians reject the word of God or other Christians because of how intense "the aroma of the knowledge of [God]" is. 

Too often, I know when I experience rejection in friendships, it is a result of a personal shortcoming.  I confess I am quick to speak and slow to listen.  I am opinionated to the point where I'm sure many have believed that I am simply judgmental.  These are fair assessments, though, I strive in God's enabling Spirit to be more humble and demonstrate the love of God more fully everyday.  I must question, though, if I am becoming "an aroma that brings death".  Indeed the author of the Message translates this passage in this way: "...those on the way to destruction treat us more like the stench from a rotting corpse."  How unbelievably sad it is to know that many will never experience reunion with God because the mention of his name disturbs them so deeply.

Continuing on this passage from 2 Corinthians, the author (Paul) doesn't leave the reader in dread of how they will be received.  There is no explanation of why my faith is stinky to the world; Paul does not desire for us to explore other worldviews and promote that they can offer life like Jesus does when they cannot.  There are not directions on how to mask the odor; Paul does not teach us how to mix the message of the gospel with culturally relevant topics to ease into God's word.  There is no exhortation given to conceal the odor; Paul does not instruct the Christian to keep his faith to himself or only exercise his love of God within the confines of the church.  No, Paul only suggests that when we speak about God, we are actually speaking before God.  We must do so sincerely remembering that we were once captives to death and now are sent by Him to share freedom and life everywhere.

The Faith Fraud

In my Bible study class this morning, we were sharing what we've learned about ourselves through our two years together.  We have studied from the first book of Genesis to the book of Acts so far~ quite a bit of material. According to my Bible, we've covered 936 pages out of 1034.  I listened intently to what these "wonder women" shared and considered what I had gained.

Class review of people, places, and events from creation to Paul's imprisonment

I first came to know the Lord when I was 19 years old.  Then my faith was like a new romance full of such zeal and excitement that I believed easily and hard on the gospel.  I read Luke like one who already knows their beloved is perfect; I didn't need the good doctor's testimony to underscore my faith.  However, my fervor faded as any infatuation inevitably does.  I think many consider this an actual crisis of faith: did I even believe to begin with?  What is it I actually believe anyhow?  At times I was even embarrassed by how shamelessly I boasted of Christ without really even knowing him.

By grace my skepticism and doubts turned into seeking.  I have witnessed a small number of my dearest friends withdraw from Christ entirely when they determined that either their hearts or minds had been deceived by Christianity or the church.  The intellectuals in the bunch just could not come to terms with God's claims in the Bible.  Too much mystery in creation, miracles, prophecy, etc to be firmly grounded.  They chose the wisdom of the world~ what they could see, test, explain.  For the passionate friends, they could not wait or trust in the fidelity of their creator; they sought the love of man.  No longer grieved by loneliness, no longer embittered by waiting for "God's timing", no longer burdened by the standards of a perfect Lord~ these friends were free to enjoy the security and intimacy of romantic love (perhaps the greatest idol for American women).

I share this not passing judgment on my dear friends.  I only comment because I, too, have clung to the tangibles when I could not see God clearly.  I still do to a degree.  After my zealous season passed, I began to go after the head-knowledge I was lacking.  I read stacks of Christian books and did a number of small group studies over the years.  Each one was beneficial to me; I was always happy to learn from others about God.  Yet I still deep down had a nagging feeling that my love for Jesus was not sincere.  So troubled by this thought, I was afraid to even talk about my faith because I was certain others (particularly Christians) would see through me.  Words like "inauthentic", "fraud", "deluded", and "phony" would pop up in my mind in the moments I wanted to talk about Jesus.  How was it that I wasn't getting closer to God when I was making the effort to explore and understand him?

That's where this study comes in.  I didn't know when I started it that I would gain a "big picture" approach to the Bible.  After all, it's 66 books written by 40 different men over the course of more than 1000 years.  How unified could it actually be?  How would the storybook characters from my Sunday school years like Moses and Noah fit into the bizarre Old Testament prophets like Amos and Haggai?  What does any of that have to do with the cross?  I was astonished to learn how reading the entire Old Testament prepared and shaped my understanding of the gospel.  My murky and limited view of the Old Testament was no longer pieces of felt board dramas or assertions that God in that time was different-- an angrier and vengeful God who was inexplicably cruel (have you heard that before?).

Instead, I saw the true character of God--merciful, just, and always seeking restoration in his relationship with man.  With that in mind, one can come to a book like Leviticus and see how it's not just a bunch of arbitrary rules and rituals; it was a makeshift way designed by God for man to reunite with God until Christ's coming.  In the book of Judges one can see the salvation of God each time the Israelites come under the oppression of their enemies.  One cannot miss in any book how much God loves individuals; look at the lives of David, Abraham, Daniel, Enoch (of Seth's line--not Cain's), Elijah, and Habakkuk (yes, read his short three chapter book if you've ever had a complaint against God or struggled with faith).  It's not just men that the Lord loves; take in and ponder the lives of Sarah, Naomi, Esther, Abigail, dearest Hannah, Eve, Ruth, Deborah, and even Bathsheba.  If God were not concerned with individual people, the Old Testament could not exist beyond Genesis chapter 1.

All the sudden Jesus makes a lot more sense.  Because my murky view of God wasn't limited to the Old Testament-- I now saw that the Christ I knew was incomplete, even a shadow of who he really is.  I once heard a story about a missionary who gave a man a copy of the New Testament.  This man read it entirely and returned to the missionary to share his thoughts.  The first thing he said to the missionary was, "Where is the first part of the story?"  When I approached the Bible with an attitude that the New Testament is for Christians and the Old Testament is for Jews, I missed the big point~ why Christ had to come at all.  How can I really understand my separation from God when I don't know when our separation happened, what God revealed about himself in spite of our separation, and how he planned our rescue from the moment things went wrong.

This is the long answer for what I've gotten from this Bible study.  I don't have to cringe when someone says that God is wrathful and angry or that God and Jesus have different and contradictory characteristics (personally, I find some of Jesus teachings about those going to heaven and hell much tougher than the assertions of the so-called "angry God of the Old Testament").  Jesus couldn't be the loving, compassionate Savior of the world if God weren't loving and compassionate as well.  There is ample evidence of that before Jesus' name appears in the Bible.  Having studied the word, my foundation for my faith is firm~ I know what I believe and no longer have to feel like I'm a faith fraud.