SERMON: SPIRITUAL OSCULATION: KISSING THE FEET OF JESUS
Luke 7:36-50
One of the Pharisees asked Him over for a meal. He went to the Pharisee’s house and sat down at the dinner table. Just then a woman of the village, the town harlot, having learned that Jesus was a guest in the home of the Pharisee, came with a bottle of very expensive perfume and stood at His feet, weeping, raining tears on His feet. Letting down her hair, she dried His feet, kissed them, and anointed them with the perfume. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this Man was the Prophet I thought He was, He would have known what kind of woman this is who is falling all over Him.”
Jesus said to Him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Oh? Tell me.”
“Two men were in debt to a banker. One owed five hundred silver pieces, the other fifty. Neither of them could pay up, and so the banker canceled both debts. Which of the two would be more grateful?”
Simon answered, “I suppose the one who was forgiven the most.”
“That’s right,” said Jesus. Then turning to the woman, but speaking to Simon, He said, “Do you see this woman? I came to your home; you provided no water for My feet, but she rained tears on My feet and dried them with her hair. You gave Me no greeting, but from the time I arrived she hasn’t quit kissing My feet. You provided nothing for freshening up, but she has soothed My feet with perfume. Impressive, isn’t it? She was forgiven many, many sins, and so she is very, very grateful. If the forgiveness is minimal, the gratitude is minimal.”
Then He spoke to her: “I forgive your sins.”
That set the dinner guests talking behind His back: “Who does He think He is, forgiving sins!”
He ignored them and said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”
The story that Don Scott read for us a few moments ago is, to me, one of the most powerful stories in the Scriptures. it has so many ways to approach it, that one hardly knows how to begin. I didn't flip coin to decide the approach, but I suppose I could have. What I I finally did decide was to look at kisses in the Bible, and see where that might lead us.
The word, kiss, appears some 37 times in the Bible, the first being in Genesis... a kiss of betrayal. That is the story where Rebecca and Jacob conspired to trick Isaac into giving the blessing to Jacob, rather than the rightful one, Esau. Isaac asked Jacob to come near and kiss him ... so he could smell the clothing to make sure it was Esau. What a way to introduce such a word of beauty and sweetness into the Biblican narrative!
The next scene where we see the word, kiss, is when Jacob saw Rachel ... the most beautiful sight his eyes had ever beheld! Read it in Genesis 29:
While Jacob was in conversation with them, Rachel came up with her father’s sheep. She was the shepherd. The moment Jacob spotted Rachel, daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, saw her arriving with his uncle Laban’s sheep, he went and single-handedly rolled the stone from the mouth of the well and watered the sheep of his uncle Laban. Then he kissed Rachel and broke into tears.
Now, that is more like it! I don't know what Rachel thought about all that, but she sure tickled Jacob's fancy. I mean, really! To agree to work 7 years for her, only to be betrayed, and then agree to work another 7 years for her? If that isn't love, then the ocean is dry, there's no stars in the sky, and sparrows can't fly ....
The next kiss I want to mention again involves Jacob, but this time, it's a bit different. He is going to meet his brother, Esau, after an absence of about 20 years .... and is frightened out of his mind, thinking Esau will harm him. But, no! Heed the Bible: Genesis 33:1-4 ... "He led the way and, as he approached his brother, bowed seven times, honoring his brother. But Esau ran up and embraced him, held him tight and kissed him."
The kiss of forgiveness, welcome, and glad to see ya, Bro! I love this one, too!
There's a number of kisses as history goes forward ... kisses between Joseph and his brothers, between Joseph and his father, again, Jacob .... (boy! Jacob sure was involved in a lot of Biblical osculation (that's a fancy word for kissing). Kisses between Aaron and Moses, kisses between Moses and his father-in-law .... and then, we jump to the book of Ruth 1:8-9 ....After a short while on the road, Naomi told her two daughters-in-law, “Go back. Go home and live with your mothers. And may God treat you as graciously as you treated your deceased husbands and me. May God give each of you a new home and a new husband!” She kissed them and they cried openly."
When Samuel anointed Saul to be King over Israel, he kissed Saul. The Bible talks about kisses between Jonathan and David, and David and Absalom.
In an allegory, Righteousness and truth kiss in Psalm 85. And, here's the ones you have been waiting for ....
From the Song of Solomon! The woman is speaking: "Kiss me—full on the mouth! Yes! For your love is better than wine, headier than your aromatic oils. The syllables of your name murmur like a meadow brook. No wonder everyone loves to say your name!"
And again: The kisses of your lips are honey, my love, every syllable you speak a delicacy to savor. Your clothes smell like the wild outdoors, the ozone scent of high mountains. Dear lover and friend, you’re a secret garden, a private and pure fountain. Body and soul, you are paradise, a whole orchard of succulent fruits— Ripe apricots and peaches, oranges and pears; Nut trees and cinnamon, and all scented woods; Mint and lavender, and all herbs aromatic; A garden fountain, sparkling and splashing, fed by spring waters from the Lebanon mountains.
And a third time: "His words are kisses, his kisses words. Everything about him delights me, thrills me through and through! That’s my lover, that’s my man, dear Jerusalem sisters."
From there, though ... we take a tremendous jump to Luke's Gospel, and the story of a woman's kiss on the feet of Jesus. Such a tremendous account in the life of a lady of the evening, who anointed Jesus for burial!
Oh, how the disciples complained, especially Judas! It is very interesting that such an act of devotion could be so roundly condemned by those who were witnesses. Judas thought the anointing oil should have been sold, so he could get his hands on the money. Simon thought Jesus should have known better than to have this woman kissing His feet. The others complained that Jesus had no right to forgive sins .... and on and on it goes.
Oh, how easy it is to scoff at pure love .... if we don't understand it. I don't know how many times I have sinned, the same way. I see a couple together, and think, "What could he possibly see in her?" Or ... "What could se possibly seen in him?"
Or, it may take the track of "with her looks, she could have done a lot better than she did!" Or, perhaps, "with his money, he could have done so much better than her!"
And I ask myself...Jerry, what business is it of yours? It's their lives, their decisions. And, knowing me the way I do, had I been there at that meal on that evening, I would have found fault with the whole scene, too, I suppose. I would likely have been thinking ..."I wish it was ME she was paying attention to...."
And I strongly suspect I would not have been the only one thinking something like that.
O Friends! How we fail to recognize love when we see it! It's no wonder that God had to love us first! We just don't know the first thing about love.
We know how to grasp things to ourselves. We know how to take advantage of our friends, neighbors, business associates and the like. We know how to offer fake love, all along intending to achieve some personal gain. We know how to flummox people with praise, all with the intent of getting into their wallet, somehow.
But we don't know about love, any more than did the folks in Jesus' day. Here He is, the One they have sought for hundreds of years, and failed to recognize Him, when He was in their midst.
There's another interesting thing, here .... it was the lowly shepherds to whom the message of His birth was given, and oh, how they RAN to see Him! And here, it is the lowly woman who recognizes Him for what He is, and what He can do.
I hear Paul saying, "Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For you see your calling, brothers, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty..."
And that brings us to the final kiss I want to mention this afternoon....a midnight kiss, if you please. Judas! Judas, the betrayer! Judas, the one who could have been me, as greedy as I am. Judas, the one who wanted Jesus to be King, NOW, so he could be the ROYAL treasurer! Jerry, the one who has betrayed our Lord probably more than most.
Judas, for 30 pieces of silver, betrayed our Lord. What has been YOUR price, down through the years? Maybe not money .... but something ... something has caused each and every one of us to betray our Lord, at one time or another.
We are like disciples when Jesus told them at the Last Supper that one would betray Him .... and we ask, 'Is it I, Lord?' Am I the one who will betray you?
The stark thing, to me, in this verse is : DON'T WE KNOW? Don't we know, whether or not we would ever betray our Lord?
Robert Frost, in his famous poem, THE ROAD NOT TAKEN, penned these words:
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
And, friends, I say to you this afternoon ...somewhere ages and ages in the future, we will think back about our own lives, and we will see that the hard road, the steep road, the difficult road described in the Scriptures, is the one, the less traveled one, that we are either glad we took, or with sorrow realize that it's the one we should have taken.
And so it is, concerning Jesus. Have you kissed the feet of the Master, with that lady of the evening, or have you, like Simon, completely misjudged the entire scene, because you didn't WANT to know Jesus?
Have you kissed the feet of Jesus, standing beside the lady of the evening, or have you, like Judas, sold your very soul for a few coins?
Would you kiss the feet of Jesus, in public, like as did the lady of the evening, or would you be ashamed to do so?
What a difference in the outcome ......... Amen.
