Sixty-four years ago tonight, my father, my mother and I were involved in what should’ve been a fatal car accident. My father, driving a 1955 blue Chevy was forced across the double center line on a highway and we slammed head on into a 1958 Buick. It was the night before “Good Friday” and we were out shopping for an Easter hat for my mother. Well, she received a new hat alright. She was sitting in the center seat beside my dad. She went through the windshield after knocking off the rear-view mirror with her head. Her new hat was white bandage covering all of her head. We almost lost her that night. She had stitches from her forehead all the way over her head to her neck. Both my dad and I were pratty banged up but did not come close to death like my mom did.
I remember she told us later that while she was in surgery, she had a vision of being in a beautiful garden. She could smell the fragrance of the flowers. In the vision, the Lord Jesus came to her. He was shining like the sun. I guess He thought we needed her more because she came through and fully recovered. I was only five years old but remember it like it was yesterday. That experience made quite an impact on me, I always think about it every year the night before “Good Friday”. I grateful that the Lord allowed us all to live.
I often think about the vision that she had. I can almost smell the fragrance of the garden as the fragrance of Jesus. The Apostle Paul said this about the fragrance of Jesus in 2 Corinthians 2:15.
For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing,
Holy Spirit is in the process of transforming us into the image of Jesus to those that have yet to receive Him. As we are being transformed by His power, we should be giving off an aroma that draws the hurting and broken like the fragrance of a beautiful garden. The stench of religion repulses people, but His fragrance draws them like a bee being drawn to nectar.
How are we transformed? As we continue to love Him more and love others in the same way, we are transformed into His image. Jesus said that the entire laws of the Torah are summed up on those two principles, to love Him and to love others. The power that rose Jesus from the dead is also at work to give us the aroma of eternal life. That is something to be thankful for as we remember Jesus this weekend and what He did for us. He took on the aroma of death so that we might walk in the aroma of life.
“Lord, let us become that aroma that draws others to You. Wash off the smell of religion with Your blood and fill us with Holy Spirit and let us have the aroma You”