The Smell of Rainbows....and Lucky Number Seven.

Out of all of our senses, smell is the most powerful. It is amazing that you could walk in to a home or take a stroll down the road and be transported back to a place from your childhood all because...you smelled something. From going to my Grandmother's home, playing basketball at the YMCA in Philly, or arriving at a home in Knoxvegas where I saw God's spirit be poured out on a group of teenagers...Smell is the time machine that takes me there. I believe it goes the same for God. Since we are in his image, I believe smell is important to him as well. More on smell later....


You are an antelope. Ok....you are a good looking antelope. You must be...since you were selected by Noah himself to join him on a 40 day cruise on the lovely um...Arc. Hey, you might have not been selected number one...or two. In fact, you weren't even selected number five. You got in by the skin of your antler. But hey, number seven is better than number eight, right? Seven Antelopes selected to repopulate the world, and you are IN! Saved and happy to be in a dark Arc. Not the greatest of conditions, but I'd rather be saved than one of those ugly Antelope...right?

40 days are up...and land ho! Everyone is happy to be out of the Arc and saved! But then, Noah starts off the New World in dramatic fashion:

Genesis 8:20-21

20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.

Umm, excuse me! Then at that moment, Shem or Ham...you can't tell, they look similair upside down, grabs you and preps you for, well, sacrifice. At that moment you realize a most horrific truth. The only reason I was saved was for sacrifice. The last thing you remember is the smell of burnt wood....

A startling statistic was that one out of every seven clean animal had one purpose. They were saved for a purpose, a purpose of sacrifice. Noah wanted to start the new world right with a burnt offering.

So do you still wanna know what Rainbows smell like?

God didn't curse the ground again all because of a smell. That smell didn't transport him to a better time...since there was no better time this side of the garden. But it transported him to a time that kings and prophets wish they could have gotten a whiff of...a time where burnt wood would be exchanged for bloody wood. His Son smelled good....it was a perfect sacrifice.

Even the Rainbow was bought with a price. We should have known that true beauty comes with a heavy price. Maybe the next time I see a rainbow I will remember to put my nose in the air and smell the bow in the cloud. It will transport me to a time 2000 years ago. It will also transport me back 21 years ago when God came crashing in to my life. Maybe the smell will remind me that I was made for sacrifice....to give it away. A living sacrifice, that smells like the bow in the cloud.

Thaumazo...Ekplesso...Ekstasis...Thambos...Existemi!

Last night I woke up to see the Quadrantids meteor shower. The plan was to wake up the kids around that time so we could all witness this spectacular show. So, at 2pm I woke up and looked in to the sky to see what falling stars I could wish on. About 2 minutes in, I saw a star shoot through Orion's legs...it was really cool. Don't worry, Orion is ok! For the rest of the hour, nothing happened, at least what I could tell. Then I looked on the internet to see if I was doing something wrong. I actually found out I was looking in the wrong direction. I needed to be looking North, Northeast towards the big dippers handle or something like that. Whoops!!!!...or is it a whoops?

Are you wondering what the title of this blog post means? No, this is not what Laverne and Shirley used to say before, "We're going to do it" broke into song. Ha...no, it's not a Harry Potter incantation. Although, if a nerdy boy holding a stick said this outloud... maybe something "Amazing" would happen. These are all words that Luke uses in his gospel to indicate something "Amazing" just happened. There are only 5 words that the gospels use that translate into "Amazement", and Luke is the only one that uses them all. He wanted his readers to fully understand that our God is amazing. Isn't He...Amazing!

So what does this all have to do with Quadrantids? I think, and I'm not sure, but that I am wanting to see something amazing. My high school years, starting with a hot summer camp in Mississippi, told be from the beginning of my walk with Jesus....that He is truly amazing. Then you have those who say, "If you look hard enough you will see him in all things of life, and that He is amazing in the little things, and that He is in the ordinary, mundane things...and that is what makes Him amazing." And I would agree but just like the star gaze taught me last night: Even when I was looking in the wrong direction...the amazing found me! I saw something no one else saw by looking in the wrong direction. Isn't that just like Jesus. When all were looking for something else, Jesus surprised them all. Busting up a funeral with a resurrection, making weddings more joyful with the good stuff, and turning a normal Sunday into a day no one would ever forget. Don't get me wrong, I understand what it means to be faithful when we don't have feelings and in the everyday life with screaming kids and big bills...but isn't it true what Bonhoffer said, "Bewilderment is true comprehension". Even when we see the ugly side of life and ordinary things, we need to ask, "Jesus, what amazing thing can you do with this?"

When I closed my eyes to finally go to bed last night, I still saw the stars. It is hard to explain, but I still saw them. When I close my eyes at night, just like David, I recount all the amazing things He has done. He is not through either, and if you look just right, right in the wrong direction, He will surprise you with something amazing!