Bible Flowers: Beauty and Fragrance
Bible Flowers: Beauty and Fragrance.
“Spring flowers are unfolding in the fields. The season of glad songs has come, the cooing of the turtledoves is heard in the land. The fig tree is forming its first figs, and the blossoming vines give out their fragrance. Come then, my beloved, my lovely one, come away with me.” (Song of Songs 2:12-13).
Every flower and blossom mentioned in Scripture has a story to tell. Bible flowers are planted in a context, and could be anything from an object lesson or sermon illustration, to a metaphor or a symbol, or perhaps simply a prime example of some of God’s creative genius. No matter what, when we study the flowers of the Bible, we will undoubtedly come to understand the Scriptures that much better,, whether we’re referring to the Henna blooms (Song of Songs 1:14) or the almond tree blossoms (Numbers 17:8); the Rose of Sharon (Song of Songs 2:1) or the hyssop flowers ( ); the Lily of the Valley (Song of Songs 2:1) or the Pomegranate blooms (Ex 28:33); the Crocus Saffron (Is. 35:1-2) or the myriads of wildflowers (Matt. 6:28-29); the Myrtle blooms or Willow blossoms (Ps. 137:1-2).
Is it true that everything physical points to something spiritual? That creation inevitably guides us back to the Creator? That physical realities in nature reflect spiritual realities in supernature? That God’s handiwork leads us to the Handiworker?
Beauty and Fragrance. Flowers are prime examples of how something that appeals to our physical senses can refer us to our spiritual senses. Let’s consider two wondrous qualities of flowers that help us praise the Maker at a deeper level: Beauty and Fragrance. Is there any doubt that only a beautiful God could have created the beauty we discover in flowers? Or that the sweet-smelling aroma of flowers serve to deepen our understanding of the Christian’s role in the world as the aroma of Christ? Because flowers lead the way in appealing to our natural senses, they are able to help us mere mortals to sense God in the full meaning of the term.
Senses and Symbols. Scripture loves to use our physical senses as symbols because if there’s one thing about us we can truly understand, it’s our senses. We may not truly understand our thoughts and actions, but we can understand our tangible senses. So the Bible uses our senses as reference points for how we can experience God more deeply. Our senses represent ways of participating in the Faith, of growing and knowing. Scripture encourages believers to use our senses both literally and spiritually in experiencing God. We can, with God’s help, sense God figuratively, using our physical senses as ideas that trigger a deeper understanding of the Faith:
Sensing God. When our Creator designed the human body, He gave us our powerful senses in order to experience life to the fullest. It seems logical that our senses can only add to our experience of God on a tangible level. Our knowledge of God is not limited to the intellectual level. We can experience God more fully when we engage our senses to that end. Biblical history is full of references to men and women sensing God, using their senses to experience God more completely.
Multisensory Worship. When Yahweh designed the Tabernacle for Moses and the Israelites, it’s clear He wanted worship to be a multisensory experience (Exodus 25-31). The Tabernacle was a feast for the senses, a flood of beauty, texture, color, smells, sounds, touch. and tangible experience. The priests used every physical sense in order to follow the LORD’s plans for how God was to have an earthly dwelling place with His chosen people.
SMELLING: the fragrant perfume of the anointing oil, which was a unique blend of spices placed on almost everything in the Tabernacle, including the priests; the delicious fragrance of the incense, another special blend of ingredients, that was in constant use in the Tent of Meeting; the daily aroma of freshly baked bread in the Tent; mixing in with these exquisite aromas was the harsh smell of huge amounts of fresh blood spilled from the animal sacrifices. The Tabernacle was a uniquely aromatic experience.
HEARING: the bleats and sounds of the animals awaiting and being sacrificed; the word of the Lord being heard in the Holy of Holies; the voices of the priests doing their daily duties; the songs and chirps of the birds flying over, around and through the outdoor environs of the Tabernacle; the splashing of the priests as they wash their hands and feet many times a day; the sounds of the fire in the altar of sacrifice.
SEEING: the beauty of the visuals everywhere; the fine embroidery and weaving of blue, scarlet, and purple curtains and hangings; the gold, silver and bronze throughout the Tabernacle; the glorious interior of the Tent, lit only by the golden lampstand’s flames, reflecting all the gold of the furniture shining in the darkness; the smoky cloud of God’s Presence above the Tabernacle and in the Holy of Holies; the sparkling stones and beautiful colors in the priest’s garments; the open skies with its sunshine and shades of blue.
TASTING: the delicious freshly baked bread eaten by the priests, twelve loaves every day representing the twelve tribes of Israel; the grilled meat of the animals being sacrificed, not all of the meat being eaten, only some of the meat.
TOUCHING: the priests’ laying on of hands to sacrifice the animals; the building of the sacrificial fires; the regular handling of the anointing oil, the incense, the bread, the washing, the parting of the veil to enter the Tent of Meeting and the Holy of Holies.
“And God saw that it was beautiful, excellent, and exactly what He wanted.” (Genesis 1-2).
BEAUTY: The quality of outstanding excellence in appearance, in usefulness, in moral character, in creative expression; brings delight to the senses; well-designed and constructed; a harmony that reflects creation; extremely attractive; that which inspires awe, wonder, admiration, praise; profoundly pleasing; an act of pure goodness; the presence of loveliness and grace; something exquisite in form, function, and proportion; that which contains glory and splendor.
Beauty in Creation. The Hebrew word “towb” is translated many times as either “good’ or “beautiful,” as either “goodness” or “beauty.” Thus, God’s refrain in the creation story of Genesis 1-2 could be translated as “And God saw that it was beautiful!” God’s creative handiwork has been accepted by believers ever since as an absolute standard for beauty. Also, when Yahweh told Moses that His “goodness” would pass before him there on Mt. Sinai (Ex. 33:19), a legitimate alternative reading would be that Yahweh Lord caused all of His “beauty” to pass before Moses. Lord Yahweh then proceeded to reveal His essential character of mercy, compassion, patience, forgiveness, and faithfulness (Ex. 34:6-7). Ever since, God’s moral character centered on His love has been another absolute standard of true beauty. God’s beauty is truly His goodness. Because God is worshipped as beautiful (for example, Psalm 90:17, Ps. 27:4, and many other passages), and we are taught to “Taste and see the beauty of the Lord” (Ps. 34:8), it’s clear to anyone with eyes of faith that Creator God is the source of the world’s beauty, as He is with truth and goodness. Carrying this further, the Son of God, Jesus Christ, was God in the flesh and was likewise filled with beauty and went about doing beautiful things on earth. As Messiah He was prophesied as to His beauty in Isaiah 4:2, “The Branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious.” And seeing that the Greek word for beauty, “kalos,” is used in Mark 7:37, we can read, “And the people were astonished beyond measure, saying, ‘Everything He does is beautiful!” In the life and ministry of Jesus we see the beautiful character of God in all His goodness, kindness and compassion. Jesus even made it abundantly clear that even the smallest act of devotion carries significant beauty as He proclaimed to the disciples after a woman anointed His head, “She has done a beautiful thing for me!” (Mark 14:9). Other qualities bear witness to God’s beauty, such as wisdom, holiness, grace, and even a “quiet and gentle spirit.” (1 Peter 3:3-4). But what is difficult to accept for many is that believers also consider Christ’s sacrifice to be a beautiful act of love, even though “He had no beauty that we should desire Him.” (Is. 53:2). Since the fallen world has developed a faulty and uninspired sense of beauty, and have even defiled beauty with pornography and ugliness, one can easily look around and say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. But that’s a tragic mistake. We need to look no further that God’s creation and character to find our absolute standards of beauty. It’s true, beauty has a grid. The closer we get to those aspects of God’s beauty, the more beautiful we become. The stronger we are in harmony with the biblical absolutes of beauty, and the better we reflect those standards, the more beautiful our lives and creative expressions become.
Dwelling on His Beauty. It’s not enough to simply appreciate or admire the beauty of Christ. Instead, we need to fix our eyes on Jesus and His beauty, to gaze upon Him and worship His beauty, to allow His beauty to be formative in our lives. David exclaims in Psalm 24:7 that he has ‘one thing’ he wants more than anything else, there is one thing that would help form and direct his life… “to gaze with complete focus upon the sweet and delightful beauty of the Lord.” There’s a good chance that centering our life on the beauty of Christ, of worshiping His beauty, of allowing His beauty to change our lives into one like His, is indeed our ‘one thing most needful.’
Formed by Beauty. As we contemplate the divine beauty of Jesus Christ in the Song of Songs, we do not want to merely appreciate or admire His beauty, but by fixing our eyes and imaginations on His beauty, we can be spiritually formed by it. “We do not want merely to see beauty. We want something else… to be united to the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.” (C. S. Lewis, “Weight of Glory”).
“Of all men you are the most handsome, my King. You are more beautiful than all the others. Grace is dew upon your lips, pouring forth your gracefulness. For God has blessed you forever! So gird up your sword upon your thigh, O Mighty One, and ride on in your splendor and beauty and majesty. Ride on for the sake of truth! Ride for the righteous meek!” (Psalm 45:2-4).
The sense of smell is the strongest of our senses. Smells trigger memories more quickly and vividly than any other sense we have. Of all the things we remember in life situations, it is the smell that lodges in our brains the longest. To offer a lasting, pleasing aroma to God and to those around us, we need to make love our lifestyle choice; deepen our knowledge of the Lord; spread that knowledge everywhere we go; offer our body as a living sacrifice; recognize Christ’s victory over the powers of darkness; and remind the people around us of God’s holiness by what we say and do. That is the sweetest aroma we can offer. May who we are and what we do be a soothing fragrance to you, O God.
“But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of Him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved, and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death, to the other, the fragrance of life.” (2 Cor. 2:14-16).
Paul here is drawing for us a picture of a Roman procession parading through the streets. The military general is coming into town, fresh from a significant victory on the battlefield. He is riding in his chariot, surrounded by his soldiers, basking in the victory. In front of him in chains march the naked captives taken from the battle, who will either become slaves or be executed. Fresh flowers are being thrown onto this procession, bringing a sweet fragrance to the proceedings. Also, there is a perfumed incense being burned along the route, in honor of the gods who brought the victory. The aroma is strong and wafts everywhere in the parade. It is sweet and it is pungent at the same time. To the captive soldiers, the smell would be bitter, because it reminds them of their certain doom. To the people lining the street, and the victorious soldiers, the aroma was sweet, reminding them of the triumph and their victorious life.
Paul elsewhere comments on a procession like this, “God disarmed the rulers and powers ranged against us and shamed them by making a bold display and public example of them, triumphing over them in Christ and in the Cross.” (Colossians 2:15).
The Pleasant Aroma. So Paul seems to be imagining a victory parade, a triumphal procession where the powers of darkness are displayed in chains, defeated and stripped naked. Christ the general is riding the chariot, which is the Cross. The believers are the pleasant aroma that comes from knowing Christ and spreading that knowledge everywhere like a sweet perfume. To those who are perishing, the aroma reminds them of judgment and doom and is the smell of death. To those being saved, the fragrance is life-giving and triumphant. The sweet smell of life is pleasing to God and is referred to by Ezekiel: “I will graciously accept you as a soothing aroma, and I will display my holiness through you as all the nations watch.” (Ezekiel 20:41). In Christ is the sweet perfume that is wafting throughout the world, the fragrance of Christ’s victory over darkness, the smell of knowing God and of spreading that knowledge, and the aroma of God’s holiness being spread in the eyes of all the nations.
“Walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” (Ephesians 5:2). How can our lives be a pleasing fragrance to God? By walking in love, following the example of Jesus. He offered Himself up and sacrificed Himself for our sakes. And that sacrifice was like a delicious perfume inhaled by God. We can offer up a sweet fragrance as well by loving others in the same spirit, the spirit of self-sacrifice. Make love a lifestyle, a slow and steady walk that defines our life and sets our direction every day. “Give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice – the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him.” (Romans 12:1). The sweet aroma of love and sacrifice is eternally pleasing to God.
So as we take a good glimpse of the flowers in the Bible, we can appreciate them, profoundly and simply, as exquisite examples of God’s creative genius. And we can also think about why the Lord seems to have invested so much beauty and fragrance into their creation. God seems intent on taking His flowers and using them to lead us right back to Him.