“The Kiss of Life” – by Rev. Howard Mastin

​The Message
 
The first kiss is a very powerful and meaningful thing, right?
Recently I read a report in a magazine stating that the average person claims to have had 26 first kisses. Wow! What that says to me is that I missed out on a lot of first kisses!
Don’t spend the next fifteen minutes trying to remember, and then adding up, the number of your first kisses; let’s try to stay focused folks.
Again, a kiss is a powerful thing. All the fairy tales know it: Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, and so on. But how does the Bible in general, and the story of Pentecost specifically, fit into this discussion about kissing? Some say the first kiss recorded in scripture comes right at the beginning, in Genesis 2. God breathed the breath of life into the first human, performing the first, primordial mouth to mouth resuscitation — which, by the way, is often known as the kiss of life. The gospel reading for today seems to echo or hark back to the creation story in Genesis. When Jesus promises the gift of the Holy Spirit, he then breathes on his disciples the breath of resurrection life.
There used to be a television commercial featuring cute little donuts, onions, slices of pizza, etc. all cavorting around trying to get your attention as sensuous and trendy things to eat. But the big bad breath associated with these snacks wasn't sensuous or trendy at all. So, to the rescue came the advertised product, some sort of chewing gum if I recall correctly and voila, one is sexy and trendy all over again with good breath. Yeah!
Now the gospel reading for this Pentecost Sunday isn’t about bad breath, but the true, refreshing breath of life. Like the wonder of a first kiss, the true breath of life changes everything. It changes you and your outlook on life. Paradoxically, this spiritual kiss of life is based on the death of another — of our loved one — Jesus.
In today’s reading we go back into the Easter season and one of Jesus’ earliest resurrection appearances. The risen Christ shows up unexpectedly in the upper room to confront the disciples’ lingering fears and doubts with his blessing of peace, but they don’t get it at first. They can’t appreciate Jesus’ appearing to them until they see the scars on his hands and in his side. Then, we are told, they rejoiced.
While the disciples didn’t understand at first, interestingly, all the fairy tales seem to get it. True, most fairy tales end with everyone living “happily ever-after,” but to get there the heroine and the hero always have to go through struggle and suffering and even sometimes a mortal wound before that transformative first kiss of true love. True love, in almost all of the best stories, is proved through suffering, which is a thoroughly biblical concept. I suppose you could say, "you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your true love."
Therefore, the disciples were glad to see the scars of Jesus because, by seeing the wounds on his hands and in his side, they knew this wasn’t just a dream. This relationship with God through Jesus wasn’t like a schoolyard crush or a one-night stand — the scars were proof that God was serious and committed and faithful, no matter what.
We need to see the scars. The scars prove that God has truly dealt with us and our root problem of sin and rebellion. It is the scars that prove the penalty for our sin has been paid, once and for all. The scars remind us of how precious we are in the sight of God. It is the scars that make it all real.
So the disciples then knew, and we can know now, that what God did in Christ Jesus was the real deal. The real one was standing before those trembling disciples, so that when Jesus breathed on them it was the true kiss of life they received. That “kiss” meant a new beginning, a new creation was breathed by God into existence, and that breath has been passed on down to us here today and in this place.
The power of this ultimate kiss of life is the power of forgiveness: after he breathed on his disciples in the upper room, Jesus said to them:
Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained. — John 20:22b-23
The gift of God’s Spirit to God’s people is not first and foremost about spectacular signs and wonders that we can now do, but about forgiveness: receiving it and giving it out. We are sent with the same mission as that upon which the Father sent the Son. The Spirit breathed into us is not a spirit of timidity, but one that opposes all evil and injustice, and dares to stand up to evil in defense of others, as Jesus did. However, our only weapon for battling the evil in us and around us is the power of the forgiveness of sins and the kiss of peace.
We breathe in God’s forgiveness of us through the cross of Christ, and breathe out the blessing of God’s peace through our pronouncement of God’s forgiveness of others in Jesus’ name. The kiss of God’s Spirit working through forgiveness is the only thing that can revive stale relationships, and it has the power to breathe new, unexpected life into dead relationships. Again, forgiveness is actually the only power that we, as believers, have, but it is the most powerful force in the entire world. God’s Spirit active in us is the spirit of forgiveness let loose on the world, so that the kiss of God’s love can awaken the dead, free the enslaved, and open the hearts and minds of those who have been blinded by the power of sin, death, and the devil.
In other words, this new Spirit-filled life is not to be kept safely locked up behind closed doors of fear, doubt, and selfish self-righteous contentment with the status quo; we are sent out even as the Son was sent to us. Jesus could not be held down by the power of death in the tomb. Neither can we, who have had the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit breathed into us, stay behind closed doors. There are still doubting, hurting, lonely people out there whose fear and skepticism can be transformed into faith. There are people out there who need to be raised up from the death of despair, and whose hearts can be made glad by seeing the scars of the risen Christ through our lives of love and forgiveness.
It’s time for us who have already been kissed by God’s Spirit to give out the kiss of life through the forgiveness of sins to others. It’s time to break the enchantment so that they too might live eternally ever after.
Amen.

---