The story is told, and it could very well be true, of a Danish
couple who decided to break off their engagement. "It is best
I suppose that we give back each others letters," he said. She
agreed, and replied, "We should at the same time return
each others kisses." By the time they had finished their
exchange, they agreed to renew their engagement. There is
something about a kiss that does more than merely bring
about a union of the lips. It has the power to also bring
about the union of lives. Kissing is a matter of the spirit as
well as of the body, and that is why kissing is never to be
taken lightly. Treating the kiss as a minor matter has led
many into relationships where they very carelessly tamper
with the deep inner being of others.
The Italians say, "A kiss is like a grain of dust which anyone
who would be rid of it can wash away." The Germans
looking deeper respond, "A kiss may indeed be washed
away, but the fire in the heart cannot be quenched." Kissing
is so directly linked with love that to engage in it without
love is certain to open the door to lust. A kiss awakened
Sleeping Beauty, and it can awaken sleeping lust in anyone.
There are many different kinds of kisses, and we will be
looking at the most significant of them. The true romantic
kiss is to be reserved for that one you desire to one with you
on all levels.
What is a kiss? Why it is this,
It is the cement, it is the glue
Of love that makes me one with you.
There are all kinds of definitions of a kiss. Scientifically it is
the ovicular juxtaposition of the oral protrusion of the outer
cavity. From the negative view, it is the mutual interchange
of salivary bacteria. More romantic is the view that a kiss is
a secret told to the mouth instead of the ear. More
passionate is the definition of Paul Verlaine who defines the
kiss, "As the fiery accompaniment on the key board of the
teeth of the lovely songs which love sings in a burning
heart." However you look at it, one thing is sure, kissing is a
pleasant reminder that two heads are better than one.
The Song of Songs begins with the problem of a deep desire
for kissing, but only one head. The Shulamite girl longs for
the kisses of her lover, but she is separated from him. The
Song does not begin calmly and build to a climax, but it
begins with a burst of passionate frustrated love. "O that
you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth!" When
people have been separated for a long time, and then
reunited, the first thing they do is kiss. Lovers often take the
kiss for granted until they are separated, and then they
realize how much they long to embrace and kiss the object of
their love. The Shulamite can think of nothing better than
the kisses of her lover. She dearly misses her lovers kisses.
With kisses of his mouth, said she,
Let him, now reconciled, kiss me.
Thy love, said she, when it is mine,
Is better than the choicest wine.
Anyone who has ever been separated from a loved one can
enter into the intense craving of this young girl, but the
question is, what is the spiritual significance of her longing?
There is a direct parallel to this romantic longing in the
realm of the spirit. Many times the believer's soul feels
separated from God, and longs for the good old days of close
and loving communion. We sing, everyday with Jesus is
sweeter than the day before, but in reality we know this is
not so. Many days we can look back and long to return to a
former day when our loves seemed sweeter and stronger, and
when we sense the presence of Christ more intimately in our
lives.
From a spiritual perspective this Song begins with an intense
need for the lover of our souls to draw near, and give
satisfaction to the longings of our heart. It is a lovers cry
which reveals a desperate need to be loved. It is appropriate
that this opening cry for love should come from the girl.
Studies indicated that women feel the need to be loved more
than men. Spiritually it is fitting as well, for the church, the
Bride of Christ, feels the need for love more than does
Christ. He is self-sufficient, and does not feel the loneliness
or the hunger for love that we do as believers.
Believer's, like this lonely shepherd girl, cannot be happy and
satisfied until they experience the kiss of the Shepherd.
This was true for the Old Testament saints who looked for
the coming of the Messiah. They looked at this lovers cry
and said, that is us, Israel crying out to God to come down.
We have been kissed by the mouth of Moses and the
prophets, but we want the Messiah Himself, for this would
be the very kiss of God.
A lady took her nephew to her church one Sunday. He had
not been in church before, and was very observant. When
the service was over, he was busting with excitement. He
said, "Auntie-did you see God's kiss?" "Whatever do you
mean by that?" she asked. "I saw it-God's kiss-on the
window of the church. I make my kisses crooked when I
write my letters, but God's kiss is straight up." Then she
realized he was referring to the cross. It was no childish
mistake. It was a profound theological insight. The cross was
indeed the kiss of God. A kiss is a means of reconciliation,
and that is what the cross was in God's plan of redemption.
Is it just a coincidence, or is it providential that our symbol
for a kiss is a cross? God so loved the world that He gave His
only Son, is equivalent to saying, He so loved us that while
we were yet sinners, He kissed us. He came to us with a kiss
of peace and reconciliation. The cross is the greatest love
symbol in the world, and to the Old Testament saints it was
the fulfillment of their desire for the kiss of God.
For New Testament believers, the longing is for the Great
Shepherd and Lover of our souls to come again. We can look
back to the incarnation and the great love of Christ, but, like
the Shulamite girl, it is the very love of the past that makes
her long for more. One who has never known the joys of
love, and the kisses of a lover, cannot crave for them, as can
those who have already enjoyed them. The New Testament
believer, therefore, has a deeper desire for union with Christ
than did the Old Testament saints.
Religious love, like romantic love, varies in it's intensity from
day to day, depending upon health, energy, and many
circumstances. But when a Christian is feeling his best, he
should long to be possessed by the love of Christ, and kissed
into ecstasy by His indwelling presence. He should feel
something of what the poet expresses:
Jesus, Thy boundless love to me
No thought can reach, no tongue declare;
Oh, knit my thankful heart to Thee,
And reign without a rival there!
Thine wholly, Thine alone I am,
Lord, with Thy love my heart inflame.
Oh, grant that nothing in my soul
May dwell, but Thy pure love alone!
Oh, may Thy love possess me whole,
My joy, my treasure, and my crown!
The kiss has been called love's great artillery, and by the kiss
of the cross our Shepherd lover defeated the divorce plan
that Satan had set in motion, and He reconciled God and
man. Sin still separates us, however, and we can still have
lover's quarrels, and division, which leaves us feeling cut off
from the love of Christ. In the spirit realm, as in the
romantic, we need to learn to kiss and make up. In fact, Psa.
2 ends with this verse, "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and
ye parish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a
little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him."
The kiss had a very religious significance all through Bible
times. To kiss can mean to acknowledge one as Lord. The
picture of kissing the Pope's foot, and kissing idols, goes way
back in history, when the kiss had a religious meaning.
Listen to what God said to Elijah in I Kings 19:18, "Yet I
will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have
not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed
him." To have kissed Baal was to have submitted to him as
Lord. And so, to have kissed Christ is to have submitted to
Him as Lord. Kissing the Son, therefore, is the only way to
escape the wrath of God, and enjoy the romance of eternity.
Kissing is a very serious religious matter.
Kissing and idolatry went hand in hand all through the Old
Testament. Worshippers of the sun and moon would express
their loyalty to these false deities by kissing their hands and
pointing to the sun or moon. Job refers to this practice, and
he denies he was ever guilty of it in Job 31:26-28. "If I have
looked at the sun when it shone, or the moon moving in
splendor, and my heart has been secretly enticed, and my
mouth has kissed my hand; this also would be an iniquity to
be punished by the judges, for I should have been false to
God above." If men do not kiss the true Lover of their souls,
they will be kissing some deceiver. Idolatry is simply kissing
a false lover. It is a giving of your souls affection to
something, or someone, who cannot love and save your soul.
The point is, religious kisses, like romantic ones, must be kept exclusive.
Men have always gone astray when they kissed any other
than the one and only Lover of their soul. It fits the whole
pattern of Old Testament history that Judas should betray
Jesus with a kiss. God's people have always betrayed Him
with a kiss. They offered their love to Him, but then went
after other gods and kissed them as well. That is what Judas
was doing. He kissed Jesus, but then longed to kiss the thirty
pieces of silver that he got for betraying Him even more.
True love keeps its kisses exclusively for the lover. Spurgeon
wrote, "The kiss is a mark of worship; to kiss Christ is at the
same time to recognize Him as God, and to pay Him divine
worship." Those who never kiss the Son in this religious
sense will never experience the love of God, and the salvation
that comes because of it.
Because kissing had such a religious significance in ancient
history, and in Biblical culture, it became a part of the every
day life of the early Christians. Peter closes his first Epistle
by writing, "Greet one another of the kiss of love." Paul in
Rom. 16:16 writes, "Greet one another with a holy kiss." He
says the same thing in I Cor. 16:20, and in II Cor. 13:12.
Then in I Thess. 5:26 he writes, "Greet all the brethren with
a holy kiss." There was obviously a lot of kissing going on in
the early churches, which is foreign to us to day. We still kiss
in the church, but only after weddings, and even there you had
better be careful. One guy said to another, "How did
you get that black eye?" He said, "I kissed a bride after the
wedding." "Why everyone does that," the other guy said,
mystified. "Yeah," responded the injured man, "But this
was two years after the wedding." Kissing the bride has to
be timed right, or else. The New Testament seems to
indicate, however, that the Bride of Christ was to be almost
continually engaged in kissing one another as a form of
greeting.
This practice has had quite a history. In the 13th century it
was practiced in France where women kissed women, and
the men kissed men. It developed in many areas that men
would kiss women on the hand as a greeting. In England, in
the 13th century, a special instrument was used to help the
faithful obey Paul's command. It was a metal disc with a
holy picture on it, and it was passed around the church for
all to kiss. This did not prove to be very helpful as a kiss of
peace, since it started a lot of quarrels as to who deserved the
honor of kissing it first. It also led to youthful shenanigans in
church, for the boys tried to sit next to pretty girls and kiss it
after them. And old poem says,
I told the maid that she was fair,
I've kissed the Pax just after her.
The reformation abolished all this type of thing. The Greek
church still practices the kiss of peace on Easter Sunday.
Kissing as an act of respect and reverence was common in
days past, but this is no longer the case. Men kissed each other
all the time in Biblical days, and it was a normal part
of life. In the middle ages, knights kissed before a duel,
just as boxers today shake hands before a fight. The hand
shake has become to us what the kiss was to the early
Christians. A hand shake today is equivalent to a holy kiss.
We ought not to think that the kiss is no longer important. A
kiss has always been a sign of acceptance as well as
reconciliation. Jacob and Esaw kissed when they met after a
long separation. The father of the Prodigal Son kissed him
when he returned. The kiss that expresses love and
acceptance should never be out of style. A pastor told of an
83 year old woman who had been bed ridden for over 20
years. He visited her, and when he rose to leave he felt a flow
of affection go through him. He bent over and kissed her on
the cheek. A look of amazement came to her face, and she
said, "Why, I'm not ugly after all. I'm not ugly after all."
The kiss gave her assurance of being accepted. That kiss was
truly a holy kiss, and a kiss of peace. It was Christ expressing
His love and acceptance through a member of His body.
The desire for acceptance makes kisses very important on
the romantic level also. Studies show that if a man comes
home and does not kiss his wife it can stir up negative
thoughts and emotions which can lead to a fight later on.
She unconsciously wonders if she looks terrible, and doubts
her attractiveness. This negative mood can have a very
negative effect on the rest of the evening. Kissing is the fuel
that keeps the flame of love burning, and true lovers never
tire of it. Shelly wrote,
See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea;
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me.
This is how all lovers feel-both romantic and religious. If sin
has led us to a separation from God, then we need to look
again to the cross, the kiss of heaven, and let God deal with
that sin as only He can. Beecher said, "God pardons like a
mother, who kisses the offense into everlasting
forgetfulness." Bret Harte wrote,
Never a lip is curved with pain,
That can't be kissed into smiles again.
Kissing is a powerful reality in both romance and religion.
The greatest kiss of all is God's kiss of peace, which He gives
to all who receive His Son as Savior. By that act of faith they
become a part of the Bride of Christ, and they will enjoy His
kisses forever.
