"The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume" (John 12.3) (Weymouth)

Fragrance is one of the extras that a benevolent Creator has bestowed upon mankind. Out of all the bounties of Nature, perfume is one of its peculiar treasures. The vegetable kingdom could easily perform all its essential purpose and remain scentless. Yet the manifold fragrance of bark and stem, of root and flower, of oils, gums and resins, of spices, leaves and fruit are proof that God designed for man's benefit a fragrant world.

Man's first home was a garden. Botanists have discovered an odoriferous flora in all parts of the globe. Their estimate that one in every thirty plants is perfumed is not likely to be exaggerated. A walk round any garden or down any country lane will call the attention to many perfumes which linger in the memory. The western nose is still familiar with the fragrance of lavender, rosemary, mint and thyme, once highly prized in herb gardens, where the heavy scents of old roses, of pinks and wallflowers, lilacs and honeysuckles, limes and sweet briars filled the air with rustic sweetness and the peace of country life.

The sweet scent of drying hay, of crushed grass, the fragrance rising from a field or garden, even from a dusty road newly washed by a reviving shower of rain, have the power to awaken half-forgotten things, to create a yearning for peace and beauty, to soothe the fret and strain produced by the pace and sounds of the hectic, modern world.

This fragrance and the sense of smell are not without design. The sweet perfumes of flowers uplift the spirit. Aromatic perfumes soothe the nervous system wearied by close confinement or too close pressures with the discords and staleness, the more noxious vapours of crowded life.

Perfume of a rich and spicy odour was lavishly used in the east. Kings and priests received a costly anointing, while the ceremonial of religious services smoked with burning incense. The ritual of swinging censers was a means of worship. As sight and sound appealed to the mind, the heart was gratified by the fragrant clouds which rose from the altar of incense. The Bible is rich in metaphors borrowed from sweet smelling plants. The recipe for the holy anointing oil and for the incense of the sanctuary was a closely guarded, Divine prerogative, not designed for private use but for man's communion with God.

Worship and prayer were the sweet odours of the devout, loyal human heart, ascending to heaven through a fragrant veil in which the Spirit of God commingled awhile with the spirit of his people. These rich perfumes expressed the delight and satisfaction of God in such pure worship, while the worshipper was revived, stimulated and refreshed through the medium of perfume.

The sweet-smelling savour which rises to the Throne of grace is that of sincerity. In John's vision he saw the four and twenty elders having not only harps in their hands but golden vials "full of sweetness" which are the prayers of saints.

Perfume is more than a distilled essence. It is the fragrant breath of Nature exhaled by forest, meadow, mountain and garden, a sweetening of all the air in a silent acknowledgement of the love and loveliness of the creative spirit. If prayer be its counterpart, then it is the spiritual breath of life, as natural and spontaneous, as constant as that floral breath which flows in health-giving waves from vigorous trees and plants. Both are a sign of health, a symbol of joyous care-free existence.

Incense which has anointed kings and hallowed the altars of the Most High has its equivalent in the human heart. The compelling charm of the human being lies not merely in a pleasing, outer appearance, but in an inner grace. As every lovely thing is beauty so every grace is love, the very heart and centre of being, the very essence of God. "God is love and everyone that loveth is born of God". Love is the hallmark of God, stamped upon all his creation. As fragrance lies in the heart of Nature, so love lies in the heart of human beings. When given whole-heartedly to God and unselfishly to others in willing service, it constitutes that fragrance of the heart which fills the house, any and every house, where its essence flows from a generous service to refresh and inspire by its stimulating properties.

When Mary of Bethany took her "pound of ointment of spikenard very costly" for the anointing of Jesus, she at least knew what she was doing. So did the recipient of her generosity, for He knew himself to be both King and High Priest, shortly to complete his sacrificial work upon the cross. Hers was no mere phial of distilled sweetness, but a vase of rare and expensive perfume whose odours would linger on through many days, doubtless refreshing the last hours of the Son of Man, hustled from court to court and finally to Calvary.

"Against the day of my burying hath she done this". Nicodemus also came with spices, and the women who were first at the tomb. Eastern perfumes were the products of Arabia, India and the Spice Islands. Great skill was required in their blending. It was a high art and the apothecary of that day was not a seller of medicines but a maker of rare perfumes. The costly spikenard came from a plant growing on the mountains of India. Many aromatic plants grow in the high places, entombed in snow half the year, their flowers white as though expressing that purity and isolation from the valleys below in which they could not live.

Blended with oils and resins the spikenard was sealed with wax into an alabaster container. Some of these have been found in ancient tombs, some still sealed, others broken, their perfume still strong and lingering after the passing of centuries. It was such a vase that Mary unsealed, pouring out its rich contents on the Lord as he sat at supper, the perfume rising like incense, filling the whole house, enveloping all who were there in a holy fragrance which lingers today about all who read the Bethany story.

It was no accident, but a long foreseen incident that He who was both King and Saviour should be publicly anointed with a king's anointing. His very name was "as sweet ointment poured forth". No other name has so refreshed and stimulated with hope and adoration the hearts of men and women down the years as the sweet name of Jesus, and no life can have ascended to God in such rich clouds of incense as the sacrificial life of the Lamb of God who gave himself and was given of God that love may yet prevail over all that is crooked, evil and perverse.

Jesus both gave and received the choicest perfumes. The inspired Psalmist saw him "anointed with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. All thy garments smell of myrrh, aloes and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad".

It is the picture of the heavenly bridegroom, the Kingly Son of God equipped with power and authority to bring gladness to the earth. In his first brief ministry the healing of his seamless dress, the hem of his garment, brought relief and strength to the touch of faith. He passed through crowds or stood surrounded by sick, neglected people and the perfume of the high places from which he came flowed to them in compassion. He went about in the cities and villages teaching, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

What an illustration of heavenly perfume poured out in fragrant earthly ministry! What a glorious hope of things to come ! When the same power wielded by wisdom and love releases to all flesh the unstinted flow of universal blessing, the very atmosphere will be cleansed and charged by healing virtues. The burgeoning earth, the blossoming deserts, the joyful fields, the rejoicing trees pouring out their fragrances upon the benevolent breezes, will recreate that old, lost garden which had the tree of life.

Jesus prized the lily of the fields, seeing in it a lovely beauty that far surpassed the royal dress of kings. The most fragrant plants are often lowly, humble of dress and inconspicuous in size, yet their hearts are laden with that delicious perfume which cheers and inspires. Large, flamboyant blooms often have little to give but their outward show. The fragrant are tiny bells and florets, the small trumpets, sometimes pouring their perfume on the night air. So does God hide his sweetness in a lowly heart. Behind many a plain face beats a golden heart full of true devotion. The best is brought out of many quiet lives when trouble and sorrow, pain and distress, lay their hands upon the lives about them. The unsuspected kindness and unrevealed goodness breathes out a healing, comforting fragrance into those dark hours.

The precious spikenard is owned by those who dwell with Christ in heavenly places, far removed in thought and conduct from this present world. Like Mary they pour the heavenly perfume garnered from the mountain tops into a fragrant earthly ministry. The lingering incense of their lives writes their daily commendation in the Master's words, "What she could do she did". Not creeds but deeds, fragrant with loving kindness, is what people need. The fragrance of love, gracious, delicate, discerning, stimulating, generous and responsive is God's greatest gift to all creation.
AOH