Kiss

It was a beautiful summer day. I was running around laughing, my little six-year-old legs moving as fast as I could go. Brushing the flyaways out of my face, I ran toward the top of a hill, only to get tagged. In this game, when a person is tagged they must fall on the ground, close their eyes, and wait for someone to tag them back in. So I fell, and waited. It didn't take long before I heard someone running my way. I tensed, ready to spring up and run the second I felt the tag. But it didn't come. Instead I felt a kiss on my cheek. I immediately opened my eyes to see the back of my friend Joey racing away in the direction of his house. What just happened? I thought to myself. Sometime later, he gave me a little red mirror in the shape of a heart. I thought it was so nice, and didn't know the significance of it until a couple years later when I cleaned out one of my memory boxes. There it was, a little smudgy but intact. The reflection in it was older, but the memories were still there. I had kept it because he was my friend, and because we moved away shortly after he gave it to me. I smiled and set it aside. Time to let it go and allow it to bring someone else a little bit of happiness.   

Kisses are usually a symbol of love, affection, relationship, trust. When Jesus was born, I have no doubt His mother Mary gave Him kisses. He was her little one, her first child, the face of God Himself. I'm sure her motherly instincts, as well as her love for her Father in Heaven, compelled her to kiss His soft little cheek. 

There was another kiss that was given to Jesus, but it was a kiss of betrayal; a mark that symbolized the hatred of those who wanted to kill Him. They did not know it actually marked the beginning of what Jesus was destined for, a prophecy coming to life from centuries before Jesus was even born. The little baby Mary had held in her arms, the Son of the Most High God, was sent to die so that we could be free. His suffering, His pain, His horrible death on a cross and then rising again three days later gives us a glimpse of the love that God has for us. The kiss of death became a kiss of life. A life we can live in eternity with Him.

"Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life." John 5:24