Opening the door this morning I am convinced Spring has arrived. Not because of the arrival of Daylight Savings Time which once again compels me to wake up in pre-dawn hours. Not because the morning sparkle of frost has been replaced by pliable glistening of dew. Not even because of emerging green blades of daffodils can be seen breaking out from the hidden bulbs. No, I am convinced Spring is here because of the smell. 

Yesterday, farmers took the opportunity to spread manure on the fields to help the growing process. The ground had already been overturned. Seeds had already been broadcast. And now the addition of this stinky waste product we would rather not talk about is applied. All to promote growth for the harvest. 

Prior to Jesus’ palm-laden path into Jerusalem for Passover, he overturned conventional thinking by telling Lazarus to come out of the tomb. A tomb where he had been planted four days earlier. Even Martha, sister to the dead man, wanted to remind Jesus, “But Lord…by this time there is a bad odor” (John 11:39) or more succinctly in the King James Version – “Lord, he stinketh.”

As a people we love to see growth. Spring flowers make us smile. Subtle green growth in the once fallow fields give a sigh of relief. Even within the throes of the pandemic, legislation and restrictions can not stop this stage of life that is the growing season. And yet, we don’t like the stinky parts.

As Holy Week begins today with Palm Sunday, we want to skip right to the joy of the Resurrection without the smell of betrayal, the stench of injustice, the odor of evil that increases as we move closer to the cross of Good Friday. Then once the body of our Lord is laid in the ground, we want to think of the flowers bordering the garden tomb and the spices brought by the women in order to ease our discomfort. And yet, we need to sit in the foul odor of death in order to embrace the next step in our growing process.

When someone I love and cherish goes through the pain of cancer or COVID or whatever ultimately claims their human body, it stinks. I don’t like how the loss leaves me in my own pain from the emptiness I experience. And yet, Jesus tells us:

Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”
John 12:24

Holy Week reminds us transformation requires some kind of death to be put upon the field of our life and that the stink of a situation has to be known before the fragrance of new life is realized. 

But the time of bad smell is one we must encounter and is one that will pass. 

One time after my youngest son’s football game, I picked him up from school and he took off his cleats. And wow – his feet didn’t just stink, they REEKED! But being a loving mom, who rolled down the windows and breathed as shallow as possible until we got home, I did not kick him out of the car.  That incident was 10 years ago and I am so glad for the moment because we laughed together and became closer. God uses the not pleasant and uncomfortable moments as opportunities to grow us closer to Himself and to one another.

Spring is all about not judging by what we see or smell. Isaiah 43:19 reminds us:

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way…”

New things spring up, thanks to the not so comfortable seasons we encounter in our nation, in our church, and in our lives. And yet like our faith, manure only makes things grow when it is spread around for if we  only keep it in our church buildings or in our individual lives, it will only make a big stink. 

Manure on the fields only smells for a season before the field is transformed by new life. This is true for a farm field as it is for the church that also goes through seasons that make us turn up our noses and want to turn the other way. And yet when we encounter people with an odor of offense rather than offering – either literally or figuratively speaking – they serve as a reminder that in the moments of life that “stink” we get the opportunity to grow. To pay attention. To look deeper for there are unseen seeds waiting to sprout – we just don’t see it yet.