Luke 15:20- But while we was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
And so we finally come to the last of those verbs in verse 20- the father KISSED him. What pray tell might be the antonym, the opposite of the verb "to kiss"?
Some of my young Ukrainian friends suggested the opposite of to KISS might be to HIT. We tossed a couple of other ideas around and we settled on this.
The opposite of to KISS is to withhold affection or withhold love.
You see, in trying to come up with an antonym for the verb, to kiss- we sort of necessarily had to deal with the noun, kiss. We decided that a kiss is in many ways a symbol. It's symbolic of affection and love. Or at least it should be. In our world today a kiss is casual; it has lost so much of it's meaning, so much of it's value.
I told the kids a story from my college/post-college days. I liked this girl named Karen. We were pretty good friends my last year in college. After college she was probably the first college friend I knew that bought a house! Whenever I was in Starkville I would hang-out with her. We didn't really "date", but we did spend quite a bit of time together and we talked on the phone a few nights a week. So...there was this budding relationship. One Saturday night after we had cooked dinner and listened to Mississippi State beat USM on the radio I got ready to go home and mustered the courage to ask her if I could kiss her goodnight. I was really proud of myself for being such a gentleman!
She said no.
I was crushed. I thought there was something there. And I was mad at her. And I was mad at myself for even asking her in the first place. I stewed and brewed until Sunday morning. I don't have a clue what the Pastor preached about but the Holy Spirit spoke to me about my expectations and about the meaning of a kiss. I wanted to kiss her because I felt like I deserved it and because it seemed like the next logical step in our "relationship". But what the Spirit told me is that a kiss should be a reflection of love from the heart and not an exclamation point at the end of a date. So I vowed from that day forward that if I ever kissed anyone again it would be an expression of love.
Now, it's interesting that Paul encourages the church to kiss one another with a holy kiss- a form of greeting-and of course a display of affection. I'm sure he's not talking about a passionate, full-on, tongue-in-mouth kiss. But what really caught my attention when looking at those passages is that on every occasion (I think) where Paul instructs the church to kiss one another, the verb is coupled with the adverb "holy", i.e., "greet one another with a holy kiss." When Peter wrote his epistle he instructed his readers to greet one another with a "kiss of love".
Do you see a trend? If this greeting, this brotherly and sisterly expression of affection was intended to be "holy" and a display of "love", then how much moreso a romantic kiss?
And if a kiss is a holy thing, a sacred thing, a powerful expression of love and affection...then how much more tragic is the fact that Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss?
So the father kissed his young son in an entirely appropriate, holy, with-love kind of way. He didn't withhold love or affection. He certainly didn't hit his child if that's an acceptable opposite of "to kiss". And God our Father doesn't withhold his love and affection, either. If you feel like that's what He's doing then I suggest one of two things is happening: 1) You are out of fellowship with Him; you've turned your back towards him and you don't know he's looking for you and full of compassion he's running after you, eager to embrace and show affection towards you. Or 2) You're believing a lie from the pit of hell that says God is hateful and vindictive and is just looking for a time and place to crush your spirit. That's not what this narrative tells us about God.
And so we finally come to the last of those verbs in verse 20- the father KISSED him. What pray tell might be the antonym, the opposite of the verb "to kiss"?
Some of my young Ukrainian friends suggested the opposite of to KISS might be to HIT. We tossed a couple of other ideas around and we settled on this.
The opposite of to KISS is to withhold affection or withhold love.
You see, in trying to come up with an antonym for the verb, to kiss- we sort of necessarily had to deal with the noun, kiss. We decided that a kiss is in many ways a symbol. It's symbolic of affection and love. Or at least it should be. In our world today a kiss is casual; it has lost so much of it's meaning, so much of it's value.
I told the kids a story from my college/post-college days. I liked this girl named Karen. We were pretty good friends my last year in college. After college she was probably the first college friend I knew that bought a house! Whenever I was in Starkville I would hang-out with her. We didn't really "date", but we did spend quite a bit of time together and we talked on the phone a few nights a week. So...there was this budding relationship. One Saturday night after we had cooked dinner and listened to Mississippi State beat USM on the radio I got ready to go home and mustered the courage to ask her if I could kiss her goodnight. I was really proud of myself for being such a gentleman!
She said no.
I was crushed. I thought there was something there. And I was mad at her. And I was mad at myself for even asking her in the first place. I stewed and brewed until Sunday morning. I don't have a clue what the Pastor preached about but the Holy Spirit spoke to me about my expectations and about the meaning of a kiss. I wanted to kiss her because I felt like I deserved it and because it seemed like the next logical step in our "relationship". But what the Spirit told me is that a kiss should be a reflection of love from the heart and not an exclamation point at the end of a date. So I vowed from that day forward that if I ever kissed anyone again it would be an expression of love.
Now, it's interesting that Paul encourages the church to kiss one another with a holy kiss- a form of greeting-and of course a display of affection. I'm sure he's not talking about a passionate, full-on, tongue-in-mouth kiss. But what really caught my attention when looking at those passages is that on every occasion (I think) where Paul instructs the church to kiss one another, the verb is coupled with the adverb "holy", i.e., "greet one another with a holy kiss." When Peter wrote his epistle he instructed his readers to greet one another with a "kiss of love".
Do you see a trend? If this greeting, this brotherly and sisterly expression of affection was intended to be "holy" and a display of "love", then how much moreso a romantic kiss?
And if a kiss is a holy thing, a sacred thing, a powerful expression of love and affection...then how much more tragic is the fact that Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss?
So the father kissed his young son in an entirely appropriate, holy, with-love kind of way. He didn't withhold love or affection. He certainly didn't hit his child if that's an acceptable opposite of "to kiss". And God our Father doesn't withhold his love and affection, either. If you feel like that's what He's doing then I suggest one of two things is happening: 1) You are out of fellowship with Him; you've turned your back towards him and you don't know he's looking for you and full of compassion he's running after you, eager to embrace and show affection towards you. Or 2) You're believing a lie from the pit of hell that says God is hateful and vindictive and is just looking for a time and place to crush your spirit. That's not what this narrative tells us about God.
1 comment:
good stuff... all of it.. I love when God does that...
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