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Early one morning I received a distress call from our neigh-bor. Like the captain of a sinking ship, she fired her SOS to me because—as often happens in family emergencies—her husband was out of town. I feared a medical emergency. I also feared a plumbing breakdown, for which I am totally unprepared.

After apologizing for rousing me so early, she explained that a skunk had doused both her and Harry (her dog). “Please,” she begged, “can you come over and sit with my kids while I go to the store for some tomato juice.” Tomato juice is the age-old remedy for clothes that have been skunked.

I threw on my robe, grabbed a flashlight, and plunged into the reeking darkness. The air offered unmistakable evidence that the skunk had been, or was in the vicinity. Unspotted, I completed my mission.

Can we as Christ’s people leave such uncomplicated evidence of our faith to people in darkness? This is part of our missionary task, according to the apostolic metaphor. Paul praised God for using him to spread the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ everywhere. “We are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing,” he said (2 Cor. 2:15).

Is this the editorial “we,” meaning that only Paul carried such a scent. I doubt it. I rather suspect he meant all the Christians throughout the churches of Greece.

After examining Paul’s work we could easily say he “stunk up the place.” What a stink he raised everywhere he went—Lystra, Derbe, Ephesus, Philippi, Corinth, Athens, Jerusalem, Damascus and Rome. Some believed him and some did not. Regardless, his presence never went unnoticed.

His divine odor never drifted away. Like the irrepressible skunk spray, it stuck to him so closely that he paid a ridiculously heavy price. “We were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself,” he said.

When he thought about his aroma-saturated life and work, he fired an SOS just like my neighbor did to me. “Who is sufficient for these things?” he cried. His cry captures the enormous significance of our missionary tasks. How does our spiritual fragrance make a difference in someone’s life?

Obviously, someone’s choice to follow Christ or not does not rest solely on how good we smell. But the apostolic metaphor drives us to soak up Christ’s fragrance and bear it to others.

Skunk odor terrorizes people and animals. In sharp contrast, we are to diffuse Christ’s aroma everywhere so that people will be drawn first to us and then to him. Some will follow their noses, so to speak, and find Christ; others will turn away. For some, Christ’s fragrance in us spells life; for others, death.

Whatever God calls us to do in his worldwide mission, we must check our Christ aromas. Such a checkpoint applies to those who do more routine things as well as to those who pioneer for Jesus in hostile environments. In circumstances where proclamation of the gospel is forbidden, our Christ fragrance may be the only way we can touch others. In marketplaces, in traffic jams, in post office lines and in the offices of government bureaucrats we can exude the fragrance of Jesus. Whatever our occupation, our mission is to saturate the air around us with Christ’s aroma.

What is his fragrance? Paul said it was the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ. Such knowledge surpasses facts about him; it is personal, intimate, obedient and loving knowledge. It is the knowledge that husband and wife have of each other. When two people live deeply in love with each other, they have an unassuming but compelling fragrance about them.

Perhaps our missionary life and witness could be like that. We do not need improved work techniques and strategies as much as we need more powerful evidence that we are hopelessly in love with Jesus.