Sloppy

A few days ago, my youngest daughter, who’s 18 mos. old, came up to me and gave me a kiss on the cheek. And not just any kiss, she really planted it on there, and afterwards, I had to wipe soggy goldfish crumbs off of my face. As a parent, I know that this comes with the territory, and so far from being offended by the goo, I felt loved by my daughter. And it brought to mind a line from one of my favorite songs:

"and then heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss …"

I find this line brilliant, both in the poetry and in the theology. Good relationships, like the ones Jesus describes (for family and for friends), are like this - vulnerable, messy, honest. My daughter doesn’t feel the need to pretend around me or anybody else because she’s not yet learned betrayal, or contempt, or any of the other experiences that lead to the masks that we create for ourselves to hide from others. Good relationships are about removing those masks again and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, raw, honest … in spite of and because of and through the mess. 

Heaven met earth not in a showdown of power, but in these raw, vulnerable, messy places. … like the innocence of a kid planting a sloppy wet goldfishy kiss on the cheek of her father, or like the buzzy razz I gave my daughter after she kissed me. I know some people don’t like that line because it seems too awkward, too raw, too much like a teenager kissing a first date, and so they replace this phrase with “unforeseen kiss.” But I think that misses the point altogether; Jesus knew exactly what He was doing when He came to earth - the prophets told of His coming - so there was nothing “unforeseen” about it. It’s not a phrase about romance; it’s a phrase about vulnerability and pure, unadulterated joy. And so that’s why I use the original version, because when I hear that phrase, I’m reminded that there’s something elegantly simple and yet infinitely deep about the way God loves us.

How he loves us so …