We stink! If we didn't stink, would there be so much money made on fragrant soaps and shampoos, colognes and perfumes and deodorants and air fresheners and plugins and sprays? It's a big market covering up our smells! But worse than that, is our sin stink! Our sins make us stink like rotting flesh or spoiling food or foul sewage! Maybe we don't SMELL our sin-stink but it's there before God. The Lord takes a whiff of sinners and plugs His nose! But, says St. Paul to the Ephesians, Christ gave Himself for us, for our sins, as an offering and sacrifice so that we would be covered by a sweet-smelling aroma. Jesus shed His blood on the cross to cover your sins. But it's not just so you can't see them, it's so that the Father can't smell them. When He looks at you, He sees Jesus. When He takes a whiff of you, He smells the pure holiness, the sweet savory smell of His Son. That's what it means that Jesus gave Himself as an offering and sacrifice: He took our place to cover our sins and make us smell good to the Lord. That way, covered in Christ as you are in your Baptism and by His Word and Body and Blood, the Father doesn't see or smell your sins and won't toss you out with the trash but counts you as His dear and holy child, smiling at your Jesus-smell.
So, St. Paul says, therefore be IMITATORS of God, because you are His beloved. Jesus covers your sins. The Father doesn't smell you. So how do we imitate that? Act like that toward your neighbor. When the people in your life get all smelly with their sins, then cover it up with the sweet smell of forgiveness. Don't run around pointing out their sins. Don't go to others and say, “Wow! So and so really smells bad! Look what they've done! Look at the stinky mess they've made!” Nope. That's not covering your neighbor's sins, but exposing them and reveling in their filth. This is why St. Paul tells us to get rid of all sexual immorality and foolish talking and filthy language and dirty talk: because acting like that, talking like that, is wallowing in the smells and slime of the world! There's serious repentance here, brothers and sisters. It's easy to live the way the world does. Listen to its jokes and tell them to others. Let our eyes and ears be filled with filth and uncleanness, the smut and junk the world loves! But what good does that do our neighbor? Rather than learn to forgive one another, we learn to live as the world does: when someone sins, makes a stinky, we point it out, revel in it, take joy in the mistakes and problems and downfalls of others! It simply should not be that way for God's people! Such stinkiness does our neighbor no good and brings no glory but only shame to God's name! And, what's more, such things bring God's wrath! Such things keep us from the kingdom of God! So there's our repentance! Turn from such filth back to Christ. Flee to the sweet smelling Savior who covers yours sins!
You were darkness once in your sins. But now you are light in Christ. You were smelly once in your sins. Now you are sweet-smelling in Christ. You were dead once in your sins. Now you are alive in Christ Jesus. You were condemned before in sins. Now you are set free in Christ. You were under the wrath of God for your sins. Now your sins have been taken by Christ. You were wallowing in the filth of this world in your sins. Now you are clean and pure in Christ. You were orphans running ragged in the streets of sin. Now you are the children of God in the family of Christ. This is why Christ came into this world. It is why He put on human flesh. It is why He went to the cross. It is why He washed you at the font. It is why He sends the Spirit with His Word and forgiveness. It is why He gives you His flesh and blood to eat and drink. In short, because of what you were, Jesus is what He is. To save you. To make you the Father's once again. Paul writes that the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness and truth. Well, that means the Spirit is at work where Jesus is, giving us His goodness, righteousness and truth. Giving us Jesus. Covering us and making smell GOOD to God.
You will remember that in this week's Gospel reading, people told Jesus He did His works by the power of Beelzebub, the Lord of the flies! Not Jesus, of course, but that's the devil. He's lord of the flies. Lord of the smelly trash heap. Christ has rescued us from such a “lord” who would keep us buried in the smelly trash of our sins. Christ has set us free by offering Himself as an offering and sacrifice in the criminal trash heap outside of Jerusalem. By that offering and sacrifice we are made clean and sweet-smelling to God the Father. Now we are set in our Christian lives in a struggle. Like those seagulls who flock to the landfill, we are eager to get back to the trash of our sins. But you are not darkness anymore but light in Christ. Struggle and pray that the Lord would keep you from the smelliness of sins. And when you do something that really stinks? Back to your Baptism, absolution, the Word and Body and Blood to be cleaned and freshened up in Christ's forgiveness. And that for the joy of your neighbor (who shouldn't have to smell you!) and the glory of God who smells you as a sweet aroma in Jesus. Amen.