Life Stinks

Life Stinks! There have been times when I have heard these words come from my lips. There are many other ways that people say this as well, but the sentiment expressed is the same.

Yet this is a terrible lie! Life does not stink. Jesus is Life. He certainly does not stink.

So what am I really saying when I say “Life stinks!”? What am I really smelling when I say “Life stinks!”?

What I am smelling is my own corruption, my own rottenness. What stinks is my own Sin-Death decay. What stinks is my attitude. What stinks is my own inability to see the wonders of God at work in my life.

My sin is the cause of this blindness. My sin and the sin of the world is what fills the nostrils of my mind’s olfactory imagination with the stench of death and rottenness.

Realizing this causes me to repent of my statement. Realizing this causes me to turn from my stink to the sweet aroma of the sacrifice of Jesus by which my stench is taken from me and buried through Baptism. Realizing the falseness of my attitude leads me to confess my sin so that I may hear again and again the promise of God so that the sweet aroma of His holy absolution fills my heart, mind, and soul.

When God works this miracle within me, I stop and remember the sweet taste of the Supper of God’s Holy Communion, where my life is filled up with the life that is in Jesus, who is fed to me bodily to fill my very being with His goodness and life.

Ah! Now I say, “Life is Good! Amen!”