Keep it Sacred Saints

Scripture:  Luke 7:44-46,50 - "And He [Jesus] turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, 'Seest thou this woman?  I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head.  Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet.  My head with oil thou didst not anoint:  but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment... And He said to the woman, 'Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace."'.

The Bible offers us the kiss as early as the book of Genesis.  It offers us the kiss through the lens of agape [godly love], storge [parental love], phileo [brotherly love], and eros [romantic love].  We appreciate the act of kissing in the bible as not so extraordinary, but normal across the generations and societies that the sixty-six books span, with both shared and differing emphases compared with here and now.  And although, generally, not mentioned alot in the bible, it does explicitly lead us to know of the most profound kisses in the history of humanity, perhaps the most profound in the record of eternity, where we are given the most charitable and risky gesture, as well as the kiss,that, in contrast, may be the most violent.

For my own experience growing up, the kiss was something a husband and wife shared fairly privately,  it was a way that some said goodbye to one deceased, and [with increasing liberality] it was the way a groom saluted his bride.  During my childhood the kiss was not  quite so public, not shared with many, and distinctly was between a man and a woman, or a parent and their child.  It did not happen much, but then with the introduction of television into the home kissing escalated quite a bit, though not so much during 'family hour' programming.  Soon enough kissing became through television more commercialized, more and more sexualized, and more popularized, even instructive.

I remember the kisses of my mom and my aunts.  I remember the first kiss sneaked on me by a little girl, from our block [and my thinking, 'Yuck.'], I remember those t.v. heroes bringing the long kiss into the living room[where the family t.v. was] often following the rescue of a pretty, young woman, and I remember the awkward kiss at the end of the prom. Debora and I have shared lips quite a bit, before and after the ''I do", and even daily now.  My sons were kissed as babies.  I remember movies where men, from France, kissed each other on both  sides of the cheek as a normal greeting, and I remember seeing folks kiss the ring of the pope, or the hand of royalty. Whew, there has been a lot of kissing going on.
   
Just what is a kiss anyhow?  For brevity sake, it is a very human way of communicating respect and honor, mutual attraction, familial affection, or plain friendship, using lips.  It is simply, and sometimes wonderfully, a signature between two folks, and globally, it travels.  But one kiss particularly stands out in eternity as the lips of one soul, met the cheek of God, and unlike the presumed kisses of Joseph and Mary upon their baby boy, or the kiss of adoration from the woman [of Luke 7:45] upon Jesus' feet, we have this other unique kiss come, as tendered by Judas, for betrayal's sake.  

"And immediately, while He yet spake, cometh Judas, one of the twelve, and with him a great multitude with swords and staves, from the chief priests and the scribes and elders.  And he that betrayed Him had given them a token, saying, 'Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is He; take Him and lead Him away safely.'  And as soon as He was come, he goeth straightway to Him, and saith, 'Master, Master'; and kissed Him.  And they laid their hands on Him and took Him."  Mark 14:43-46

Sometimes a kiss can be selfishly a way of taking advantage at the expense of another. After all, a kiss simply follows the heart, as does any gesture, and we know Jeremiah 17:9; "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked:  who can know it?"  However we joy in hope with Ezekiel 11:19; "And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh."  
Hallelujah!

Prayer:  God enormously bless us towards having a contrite heart, by which all expressions and attitudes lean upon and toward purity, by which even the kiss we offer, is of the sacred.  Let our authentic doing be compatible with the in-reach of grace, and the mission of mercy, and the liberty we ought stand fast with, being set free by Jesus' received work of love, endeavoring with imputed righteousness, to be holy.  And should all of our endeavors move towards being worship, at the heavenly end of it all, ought not the kiss be such as well?
Whatsoever we do, in word or deed, do all to the glory of God, from faith to faith.  [And 'all' means 'all'].  So past the period of social distancing, get ready and pucker up, my friends, and bless God. Let the church say 'Amen'!

(by:  Dr. McNeal Brockington)