What's that "Stank"? by Chris Kirby

What’s that “Stank”?

My office has stunk lately!  In fact, for a few days right around Thanksgiving you could smell it through my closed door out into the hall.  I mean it’s been bad.  For a few days I moved down the hall and worked in Dale’s old office.  And no, the stench wasn’t my fault (I promise).  It hasn’t even been any of the teen boys’ faults.  It was the smell of decay.  Somewhere we had a dead critter.  It could have been a mouse, rat, squirrel, or llama for all I know.  I looked high and low for a carcass.  Roger and Teresa looked even better than I did.  They moved furniture and looked in every nook and cranny.  I even used my phone to take a video of the duct work to see if our little dead intruder had been trapped in the ventilation system.  We found nothing.  Our efforts were all for not.  We used air freshener, opened the windows before it got bitterly cold, lit candles, and all sorts of things to mask the smell.  But, at the end of the day, without finding the actual source of the smell, we just have to wait for the odor to gradually fade.  For the most part it has.  By the end of Christmas break, the office should be back to smelling like roses, or whatever it normally smells like. 

But, thinking about the stench in my office in conjunction to what Greg has been preaching lately from 2 Corinthians got me thinking about something.  What’s my smell?  In Greg’s sermons, he has spoken about being an aroma of God.  That despite us being broken vessels, when are filled with the life and grace of Jesus Christ we can become something that is pleasing to those around us.  When we are willing to allow Jesus to be our Lord and permeate our lives, we become something that draws others to know more about the infinite love that He has to offer.

In contrast, before we have the life from Christ, we are filled with the death that is brought about by sin.  And, just like my office, it really begins to stink as decay sets in.  And, even more frustrating, the deeper we tuck the death of sin away and think that we are hiding it well, the worse the stink becomes.  What really drives me crazy about the smell in my office is not that something died.  That’s part of life.  But, that it died some place where we can’t find it.  Somewhere in one of my walls, or in the ceiling, or too far in the duct work for us to see is a decaying carcass.  If it had died behind my bookshelf, I could have gotten rid of the stench right away.  Don’t be fooled and think that you can cleverly hide sin.  It will eventually start to stink.  Death brings decay and with it a smell that is repulsive to those around you and eventually rot your soul. 

Let’s be a people who not only allow the light of Christ into our lives to eradicate the decay of death, but let’s also be a people who are honest with ourselves and one another about the sin in our life.  Rather than putting it somewhere deep so “no one ever finds out”, let’s take away the power of secrecy and be honest about the sin to keep it from stinking up the whole room.