Deafening Stench (Part 1)

The stench was deafening.  The bile rose in my throat and the vileness flooded my ears.  Deafening was the stench.  I could hardly hear a sound above the foul reek, the fetor of sin filled all my senses.  And the stench was deafening.  And I was choking under the heaviness of it all.

I awoke most mornings under a deep sense of dread.  Ominous.  Foreboding.

Unable to place the source of it all.  Unable to breathe under the staleness of it all.  What had happened?  How had I come to this?  Captive in my own home.  Trapped amongst them all.  How had I come to this?

We had obeyed.  That was what had brought me to this place buried under the stench, choking for air amidst the fetor of sin.  We had obeyed.

                        "Jesus said, 'Take away the stone . . . '"    (John 11:39)

We had heard Jesus' command to roll away the stone and we had laid our hand to the plow, had worked the ground and removed the stones.  We had dug bare handed into the muddy mess of the sin sickened soul of humanity and had scratched and scraped and scrambled to haul the stones away.  For Jesus was calling the dead forth —

                            "Lazarus, come forth!"     (vs 43)

He was speaking into the soul of humanity and He was calling forth the dead among the orphans.  The tiny corpses.  The littles ones lost to despair, thrown into the fires of loneliness.  Now Jesus was calling them forth!

And we worked frantically, feverishly to clear the stone.  To prepare the land for the dead to rise.  Boulders and pebbles.  Rocks and stones.  We scratched and scrambled to haul them away.

And He called Lazarus forth.  The dead arose.  The corpses came calling.  The land was cleared and the corpses came clamoring our way.

It was magnificent!  The resurrection was astounding!  And it all happened it but an instant.

The countless stones we had dragged away, our bloodied hands had toiled to haul them all.  And then in a blink of an eye, for just a moment we marveled at the majesty of Master to call them forth.

So, how now after the majesty of the Master, had I come to this?  Buried under the stench of it all.  Gasping for air, the foul reek rising, always rising in my ear.  The fetor of sin screaming through my days, tearing through my home, gobbling the good I had known.  How had I come to this?

I had unwisely forgotten to count the cost, the full cost, the cost of the stench of the sick and dying.  I had forgotten the reek of my own sin before finding Savior.  Martha had warned me, said it, but I had unwisely forgotten —

              "Lord, by this time there is a stench . . . "     (vs 39)

She had warned me but I had not heeded this word.  There will be a stench.  The sick and dying do surely stink.

And I was now constantly gasping for air under the reek of us all.  The fetor of sin, theirs and mine, threatened to choke us all.

Martha had warned.  But, the stench, Jesus!  The reek of their sin!

Martha, always so practical, so tidy, so neat.  The smell, Dear Savior, oh Sweet Jesus, the reek of the dead!

And we too live amongst Martha's mentality — so proper, so prim.  Our homes, our churches, our dear children so gloriously proper and pretty.  And when Jesus calls us to roll the stone away — we all worry and wonder but Jesus, the stench and the sickening smell of the sinful and sick!

We bar the doors, we ban the sick, we roll the stone to block their way.  Oh, the stench!  Our pretty and proper and piously prim ways can not stomach the stench of their sin, the fetor of the sick and dying.

And I awoke choking on the sickness of it all.  And so soon began to wonder was it truly the stench choking, the bile rising vile in my ears that closed me to having, to breathing of the Goodness of God?  Or was it my own prim and proper ways that choked the Goodness of God from my days?

For Martha had said, "But the stench?!"  And yet, He had answered,

       ". . . if you believe you would see the glory of God."    (vs 40)

If we believe, if we will stare into the stench of the sickening sin and BELIEVE!  We will see the glory of God!  If we will set our face into the fetor of sin and not yet falter, nor faint — if we will BELIEVE in the suffocating stench of sin that He calls the dead to living, we will see the glory of God.  

"Lazarus, come forth."  And he did arise, amongst the stench and the filth he came forth.  Not for one moment did Jesus consider or worry over the rank, the reek of us all.  He calls us forth, come forward you filthy ones and see the glory of God.

"And he who had died came out bound hand and foot from the grave clothes, and his face was wrapped with cloth, Jesus said to them, 'Loose him, and let him go.'"  (vs 44)

It is a sickenly messy business this loosing of grave clothes.  The dead reek, Martha had warned us.  They come bound hand and foot, faces covered, eyes blinded.   They stumble about in their stench and sickness searching for a shred of light, reaching for their Savior.

And we unwrap the grave clothes, clean the scales form their eyes and it is a sickening process to clean the dead.  

How I do know the maddening hypocrisy, my maddening hypocrisy in my unwillingness to rightly remember the reek of my own wickedness when Jesus called me forth.

Maddening hypocrisy.

But, when we hear Martha's cry of warning and yet heed His call and do the dirty business of the unwrapping and loosening the grave clothes of sin — oh, the glory of God we do see!

No where in the prim and proper do the Marthas of the religious elite, the Christian west see the glory of God.

The glory is found amidst the gory.  The sanctification in the stench.  The redemption in the reek. Oh, Marthas, we do so hate to hear that glory is found in the messy gory but alas, it is a truth He does call forth.

I had not rightly counted the cost, not anticipated what the stench would be.  And I had faltered, for a time.  BUT — 

      "being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ."   (Philippians 1:6)

And I had begun to rightly remember the reek I was under once upon a called forth time ago.

And I did begin to believe that He was oh, so faithful to the calling forth AND to the messy madness of the loosening and letting go.  Oh, so faithful.

Jesus was ever present amidst our stench and stink.  Never offended by our offensive foulness.  Always so very near to the vilest of us all.

And now I do see the glory of God amongst the gory.  We must believe He gladly walks among the filth and the stench, searching, ever searching for His sheep.  To see the glory of God we must believe and walk with Him into the filthiness of the walking dead and grapple with the gravity of the grave clothes.  To touch the grossness of sin, the grossness of grave clothes — to bloody and mess our hands in the loosening, to hold the stench in our very hands, our very homes and BELIEVE.  BELIEVE.  EVER BELIEVE.  He looses and lets go from the fetor of sin, those of us bound but yet willing to believe.

The calling forth is glorious, but it is just the blink of eye.  The stinky, stench filled labor of loosening, the labor of love loosening bonds is yet the work of a lifetime.  A long, arduous labor of loving with bloodied, messy hands.

Jesus called Lazarus forth and then He commanded us to first believe and then to set about the work of — loose him, and let him go.

Let us not falter, nor faint under the stench of sin, theirs or ours.  When you once find yourself choking under the vile of the filthiness of those about — then you know you have rightly stumbled into the harvest to be loosed.  To be let go.  Here you set about the true work He has called us to.

May we run headlong into the stench and set about the work He has commanded.  Leaving behind the prim and proper, neat and tidy to see the glory of God!