Yesterday, my family and I spent the day out and about in busy Southern California.
Although we had an enjoyable day together, everywhere we went we noticed a strange odor.

It wasn’t the fragrance of evergreen, or chestnuts roasting on a fire.
It wasn’t hot cocoa or other Christmas treats.
It was the raw, offensive odor of bad behavior.

At a local amusement park, we observed an older couple nearly trample small children in order to get a better seat for a show. We overheard a verbal arguement between others who cut in a line and then spoke rudely to the people they cut in front of. And then as we circled a parking lot looking for a parking space, a woman got out of her car and started yelling at us.

Oh, the joys of the season.

Bad behavior, lack of respect and courtesy, cultural and moral decay are interesting themes that I could rail against at length while purporting my own superior virtue.

The heart of the matter though is this: Sin stinks. It’s offensive. It’s ugly. I don’t like it.

The interesting challenge of following Jesus is that we serve a God who so loved the world and leads us to do the same. To love a world that is at it’s worst, quite unloveable.

Of course, the concept is not new.
While the children of Israel were  wholeheartedly serving idols, rebelling against God — He was reaching out to them.
While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

How can we love such an unloveable world that sometimes reeks from sin?
The same way that Christ loved us: through death.
Through dying to our sense of dignity and our desire to live in a happy, safe, courteous society.
To die to everything in me that demands to be respected — and instead reach out with the same love that was found on the Cross of Calvary.
To bless — when cursed.
To love — when hated.
To honor — when disrespected.

As a counterweight to the scent of sin that hangs thick in the air, we are to release a quite different fragrance to the world.
2 Corinthians 2:14-15 gives this charge:

“Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.”

This Christmas season let us be the fragrance of Christ to a culture and society that desperately needs it. Rather than being annoyed and incensed at the world around us, let us be a sweet smelling incense — attractive to the world and acceptable to God.