Illustration results for Patriarchs: Jacob

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The Eternal Kiss! (06.08.05--Family--Gen. 27:33-37)

The most powerful institution on earth! No, it’s not the United State Congress or the Supreme Court for that matter. And it isn’t the Presidency, the World Court or the United Nations. Although such institutions are singularly powerful and no one individual would ever wish to come up against any of them alone, there is no man-made institution more powerful than the first institution created and the one that has remained with us for the longest––the family.

When God created the family He did so with purpose and plan. This was not to be an institution that would last for some time; it would be an institution that would last for all time. Able to withstand the mightiest pressures of economics, politics and society, like a cedar planted on Lebanon’s hills, it had to be enduring, a bulwark of strength and a bastion of security. God had a plan when he blessed Adam and Eve with children and that plan did not include failure.

What is it that empowers the institution of the family and perpetuates it? Is it something more than a divine idea? Is there a tangible force within it that both confirms and enables it?

At age 16 Andor Foldes was already a skilled pianist, but he was experiencing a troubled year. In the midst of the young Hungarian’s personal struggles, one of the most renowned pianists of the day came to Budapest. Emil von Sauer was famous not only for his abilities; he was also the last surviving pupil of the great Franz Liszt. Von Sauer requested that Foldes play for him. Foldes obliged with some of the most difficult works of Bach, Beethoven, and Schumann. When he finished, von Sauer walked over to him and kissed him on the forehead. “My son,” he said, “when I was your age I became a student of Liszt. He kissed me on the forehead after my first lesson, saying, ‘Take good care of this kiss––it comes from Beethoven, who gave it to me after hearing me play.’ I have waited for years to pass on this sacred heritage, but now I feel you deserve it.” (Source Unknown.)

When the patriarch Isaac bestowed his blessing, his “kiss” upon his son Jacob, it was not a mere act of emotion or of pride. Isaac was passing along something of value, of importance and great power. He was serving as a conduit through which the Eternal Kiss, divinely planted on the forehead of our first parents, has passed down from generation to generation. This tangible evidence of God’s love, possessing a power that has never been or ever will be equaled upon this earth, dwells within my family and yours. As parents we possess an awesome weapon, one that no institution on earth can equal. We possess the power of the “Eternal Kiss.” Now, it is our job to make sure that the power planted within us by our parents is passed on to our children. It all began with a kiss and so it continues with you and I. A simple kiss.

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A.W. Tozer writes in the Pursuit of God: “If God is present at every point in space, if we cannot go where he is not, cannot even conceive of a place where He is not, why then has not that Presence become the one universally celebrated fact of the world? The patriarch Jacob, “in the waste howling wilderness,” gave the answer to that question. He saw a vision of God and cried out in wonder, “ surely the Lord was in this place; and I knew it not.” Jacob had never been for one small division of a moment outside of that all pervading presence. But he knew it not. That was his trouble, and it is ours. Men do not know that God is here.”
In our experience with God we must be looking for him in order for us to experience him.