Exhortation, Fourth Sunday of Lent

If you've been at Trinity for any length of time, you've noticed that many of us kiss each other during the passing of the peace. Why do we do that?

The short answer is that the Bible commands it. Five times Paul closes a letter with the exhortation to "greet one another with the kiss of peace." Few commands are repeated so often. "Love your neighbor as yourself" occurs seven times in the NT, but statistically speaking "greet one another with a kiss" is close behind.

A longer answer is that in Scripture a kiss expresses kin relation. The first time Jacob kissed Rachel, it was not romantic but a greeting to a cousin (Genesis 29:11); when Jacob and Esau are reconciled as brothers, they kiss (Genesis 33:4); and when Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, he kisses them (Genesis 45:15). The kiss expresses not only brotherhood but specifically reconciled brotherhood.

God created us with bodies, and that means that our loves and hates take bodily form, and bodily expressions of love are at the heart of our faith. The Eternal Son of God took on a body so that God’s love could take embodied form. For the Bible, it's not enough for us to love each other in the heart. If it's genuine love, it must take some physical expression.

We greet one another with a kiss because we are brothers and sisters in the body of Christ, as a way of expressing our love for one another, as a way of demonstrating our reconciliation with one another as we approach the Lord’s table.

In exchanging the kiss of peace, we ritually repeat the love of God in Christ, who took on the form of a brother to kiss sinful men and women with the kiss of reconciliation. For he is not ashamed to call us brothers.

Of course, greetings of love and respect may be hypocritical. Joab gives Amasa a Judas kiss, calling him brother, just before Joab murders him (2 Samuel 20:9). God commands us not only to express our love in gestures of greeting, but also to love in deed and in truth. Love your neighbor as yourself is not only a more frequent, but a greater commandment, than "greet one another with a kiss."

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Sunday, March 18, 2007 at 07:26 AM

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