What Do I Smell?

Collect for Monday in Holy Week
Almighty God, whose dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other that the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.




What do I smell?  (Matthew 26:6-12)


For all their textured richness, the gospels rarely tickle my nose. I suppose we might catch the faint smell of straw around the Christmas manger, or perhaps the distinctive smell of fish as Jesus calls his first disciples. And there is always that great line in the KJV’s telling of the raising of Lazarus, “But sir, he stinketh!” But most of the time, my experience of the gospels is pretty ‘unfragranced.’


Not so today. Reminding me of a perfumer’s shop in Cairo, to which I was once taken, as I read of Mary’s singular attention to Jesus’s body, my sense of (imagined) smell is carried away by the exotic pungency of the essences from the east, the faraway lands of spices and mystery. Like the clove-studded orange I made in first grade, or the lavender sachet my wife made for my Christmas stocking, or the smoke from the wood fire carried on the wind of a winter’s afternoon, there is something comforting, something real about the smell of the perfume that fills the room in Bethany where Jesus and his closest friends have gathered for a meal.


Holy Week is full of vivid visuals—green flashes of palm, the deep purple of a robe designed to mock, the water and blood seeping from the pierced side of a dead man. Holy Week is full of searing sounds—cries of Hosanna, chants of a frenzied crowd calling for action, the mocking taunts and quiet sobs of those gathered at the foot of a cross. But for me, today, after the joy turned to sorrow of Palm Sunday, when I had dared to hope yet again that the timeless story would somehow change, and the power of evil would not seem to triumph, my anxious soul is stilled by the soft sweep of hair, the silky smoothness of the oil, and the fullness of its fragrance.


Jesus rests, and receives the loving attention of his friends. My senses tingle as I watch. My nose tickles. My brain is sated by the heavy perfume. And I am reminded that the loving care Mary shows for Jesus is but a mere hint of the loving care with which God longs to sooth and shower us.


We have a long way to go yet this week, but stop for a moment and ponder this question—what does the love of God smell like to you? Whatever it is, hold on to it, remember it. Make it part of your journey to the cross—and well beyond.




The Rev. David A. Pfaff
Canon to the Ordinary
The Diocese of Milwuakee