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The Cologne of Christ

Good morning church family,

To a twelve-year-old boy like Ethan Carmichael, a $25 gift card to Macy’s was about as valuable as a $25 gift card to the grocery store, the power company, or the water and sewer department. To Ethan, Macy’s was a store you walked through to get to the food court and on to the rest of the mall. It was a place where fancy ladies shopped for fancy clothes and tried on cosmetics in front of brightly lit, glittery mirrors. It was a store where older men in dress shoes, charcoal slacks, and cashmere sweaters looked through racks of grown-up clothes while looking glumly at the salesmen sidling up to them. Macy’s was a not a store for a boy who was into video games, basketball, and cheeseburgers. But it was Ethan who was in possession of the card; having won it at a Yankee swap gift exchange hosted by his stepfather’s family. And if his prize for the night wasn’t already disappointing enough, his mom wiped all the remaining shine off of it. “Ooh, honey,” she said when it became clear that Ethan was out of swaps and stuck with the card, “that’s wonderful. You could get a new belt.”

The gift card, along with an unopened package of rock candy and a tiny stocking filled with hand warmers, had been sitting on the end of his dresser since back before Christmas; the ruins of a once-great holiday. It was the middle of February now and Ethan was in a mood to clean up his room. He threw the hand warmers in his sock drawer and the candy and the stocking in the trash. Why Ethan’s grandmother gave him rock candy every Christmas, he’d never understood. Ethan thought about throwing the gift card in the trash as well, but instead slid it into the empty credit card sleeve in his wallet; right next to his library card and student ID. “Next time someone goes to the mall,” Ethan thought to himself, “maybe I’ll tag along and see what I can find.”

Ethan would get his chance later that week. His mom was taking his big sister Eliza shopping for a sweet 16 formal that Eliza was planning on attending and, even though such an outing was fraught with grave danger for a tag-along little brother, Ethan was in a mood to gamble. At a bare minimum, he was fairly certain he’d at least get a food court cheeseburger out of it.

Macy’s proved to be about as useless a store as Ethan had feared. The entire upstairs was a complete loss; stocked with acres of women’s unmentionables and rows and rows of other finery for the fairer sex. The lower floor wasn’t much more promising. But Macy’s was still a department store after all and a quarter of the downstairs floor space was devoted to sporting goods, kitchenware, gift items, and tools and such. He spent a little while looking at a dart board but at a price of $34.99, it just wasn’t attractive enough to have to contribute any of his own money. The same was true for a tool kit and a bean bag chair he’d found. The only thing he thought he might like was a lava lamp selling for $19.99. He thought it might be a pretty neat addition to his room and it didn’t hurt that there would be just enough room on the card to throw a candy bar on the counter to go with it. But in the interest of due diligence and because he’d promised his mother that he’d at least look at leather belts, he wandered into the men’s department.

Almost everything for sale in the men’s department was well out of his price range. There were a pair of slippers he kind of liked but they were well beyond what he could afford. The same was true for a jacket that caught his eye, a robe he was somewhat keen on, and a hunting vest with lots of cool little pockets. Ethan’s eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw “$400” printed neatly on the bottom of the tag attached to the vest. He was just about to head back to the lava lamp when his eye caught an image of a cowboy standing tall under a bright blue sky, his jaw set and his dark, steely eyes looking on under the bill of a broad-brimmed hat. At the bottom of the bright, backlit poster the name “Stetson” was written in a strong and sturdy font. Ethan was attracted to the poster and the image of the cowboy. Looking below the poster, he noticed a small display of cologne. His eye wasn’t long transfixed on the rancher before being taken in by the come-hither eyes of a scantily clad, sophisticated beauty draping herself over a bare-chested man who was staring aimlessly off into the distance. “Sauvage by Dior” was written at the bottom of this poster. Both images raked at the coals glowing in his, as yet, unformed chest and Ethan was drawn in to the Macy’s cologne counter.

There were so many different scents to smell and so many different images to wrestle with. Ethan liked the Dior cologne as well as the ones by Calvin Klein and Polo but they were far too expensive. He kind of liked the Stetson cologne and was surprised to find that one of the bottles sold for $24.99. He looked up again at the cowboy and then at the temptress. “Yes,” Ethan thought to himself, “cologne might be what’s missing for me.”

Meeting up with his mom and sister, Ethan felt funny carry the sharp, little, bright red Macy’s bag that his cologne was put in. Both his mom and his sister looked at the bag and then, cocking their heads, stared at Ethan quizzically.

“What did you get there, son?” his mom asked, a kidding smile spreading across her face.

“Cologne,” Ethan replied sheepishly; wishing suddenly that he’d just bought a belt.

His answer elicited broad, excited smiles and giggling laughter from the women in Ethan’s life. “What kind?” his sister wanted to know.

“Stetson,” Ethan said, a little more confidently.

“Stetson?” Eliza said, sneering. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“Stetson is a very handsome-smelling cologne, Ethan,” his mom said while nodding approval with a patronizing air. “I think that’s a wonderful use of your gift card.”

It was a long lunch. Ethan endured some additional ribbing from his sister and probing from his mother. When they got up from the table to throw away their lunch items, he stuck the bottle of cologne in his jeans pocket and threw away the little bag.

Riding home, Ethan sat alone in the back seat of his mom’s SUV. He was glad to be mostly by himself and left out of the front-seat conversation. He retreated inside his winter coat and left his hood on for the ride home.

Stopping at a red light near the center of the city, Ethan’s eye was drawn to a large mural painted on the side of an old church building. The image was of a man who appeared to be nailed to a post and crossbeam. Sadness and anger were painted on the faces of the onlookers below but the suffering man’s countenance was that of an angel, full of love. Enraptured, for a moment Ethan seemed to be painted into the scene; one of the onlookers looking up in wonder. As the car began rolling forward, Ethan’s eye shot to the name on the sign in front of the building: “Ecclesia Odorem”.

“Ecclesia Odorem,” Ethan said haltingly; interrupting his mom and sister’s conversation. “What does that mean?”

“Oh, the church there?” his mother replied. “That’s a funny name. It’s strange. It means ‘Church of the Fragrance’ or something like that. We used to take field trips there when I was a kid and look at all the artwork.”

Ethan could suddenly feel the bottle in his pocket. “Hmm,” he thought to himself. “Whatever that was on that wall – I bet that’s what’s missing.”

We’re looking forward to another wonderful morning of worship and fellowship in the Word! We’re glad to gather and for the blessings of the time spent together – but it’s more than that. Just as a ship needs harbor times ahead of the high seas, so we need sanctuary times ahead of the rough and tumble, ensnaring weeks that lie ahead for each of us. Church is such a lifeline and a blessing for our faith! May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

  • Pastor Tate
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A Fair Trial

January 5, 2025

Luke 18:1-8

And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, ‘Though I neither fear God nor respect man, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming.’” And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge says. And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

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Plunged to Victory

I opened my heart to Jesus five days after my eleventh birthday. Prior to that, Jesus had been in my life but only as a character in stories read to me at bedtime or as an image frozen in the glowing stained glass windows that surrounded me on Sunday mornings or as an invisible spirit-person worshipped by many of the most important people in my life. Growing up in a church-going, Christian household, I had sung of Jesus’ love for me from a very early age, I’d memorized Bible verses that explained His work of salvation, I’d taken part in pageants depicting His birth, an on many an Easter morning, I’d gotten up before dawn to celebrate Christ’s resurrection from the dead. But there was something different about that night in April of 1986. Sitting there in the Civic Center in Washington, D.C., surrounded by the thousands of people gathered to hear Billy Graham preach, this mythical Jesus was suddenly standing out on the front porch of my very own heart; knocking on my door and calling my name. Listening, I could hear Him asking to come into my heart! I remember being frozen in that moment; afraid to make a sound. Looking within, I could see that my heart was in no shape to entertain. I twirled and churned about within my heart; scrambling to neaten things up a bit. But as Graham kept preaching and later, as George Beverly Shea kept singing, the Lord kept on knocking and calling my name. And then, at just the right time, I opened the door to Him. I’m so glad that I did – He’s been dwelling within me ever since.

That was on a Monday and by that Sunday, it was announced in church that I would to be baptized in just a couple of weeks. Our church had a baptistry at the rear of the sanctuary; a deep, metal tub painted aqua blue and adorned with lots of grippy, plastic treads stuck to the stairs and the floor. That tub was to be filled for me and the morning worship service altered to showcase my decision. The pastor met with me to assess the nature of my understanding and to offer me an opportunity for any clarifications I might need. He took time to go over the particulars of my candidacy and to prepare me for the sacrament. We walked into the empty tub and talked about what to expect when both it and the sanctuary would be full. I was given the list of questions I would be asked and encouraged to prepare a word of testimony to share. My stomach tossed and turned at the prospect of my private, budding love being outed in such a public way.

That was almost forty years ago now and I don’t remember an awful lot about my baptism. I do remember the ill-fitting, musty robe that I wore. I remember the cold water and trying to talk through chattering teeth. I remember being buried under the water just long enough for the world to go silent in the submerging. I remember being lifted back up to hooting, hollering, and sounds of applause. I remember being prayed over and sent up out of the water. I remember afterward having grown men shake my hand and call me “brother”.

Baptism is an odd rite but considering that it bears passage into an odd life, I say the stranger the better. So much of the Christian life exists in the intangible. Faith is held in the heart and believed in the mind. Aside from the thirty-three years that the Son of Man dwelled with us here on Earth, God’s presence – if it has been felt at all – has been known almost exclusively in the metaphysical. Christianity is a spiritual reality that must be lived out by flesh and blood in time and space. But through the wonderful sacrament of baptism, Jesus would build a bridge between the two worlds; forever connecting our earthly dwelling with our heavenly address. Jesus would have His newly minted disciples step into a river, a lake, cistern, pool, or ocean and there lay down their lives; dying to self. Then, just as Jesus had been raised from the dead and taken out of the tomb, so all the submerged followers of Jesus would be raised to newness of life as born-again, new creations. It’s a truly amazing and miraculous thing; no doubt mocked and viewed scornfully by the world. But to those that believe – it is the best of experiences. For on that day and in that moment, the baptized climb out of the water by Jacob’s ladder. Having lain down their lives, a way is opened to Heaven. Hallelujah!

We’re looking forward to gathering together for our first worship service of 2025. No matter the dates with destiny that will be written in on our, as yet, empty calendars, no matter what difficult and unsettling headlines will scroll along the chyrons of our lives, and no matter what ups and downs will keep our stomachs queasy – we know we’ll have the Lord beside us as we walk through it all. And for the journey we’ll have each other and the wonderful household of faith for encouragement. I’m so thankful for our church family! Tomorrow stands to be a wonderful day of worship and testimony. May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!

  • Pastor Tate
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