Brothers and sisters, pray for us. Greet all God’s people with a holy kiss. I charge you before the Lord to have this letter read to all the brothers and sisters. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. (1 Thessalonians 5:25-28)

Kissing people who are not my family is not something I do. Or at least, it wasn’t until I met my wife. Now I regularly kiss friends and acquaintances as well. Why the change? Some of you may already know.

Americans have no cultural practice of kissing people with whom you are not already in some way, intimate. But the Dutch do—as do any number of cultures around the world—and my wife is Dutch. The Dutch have a standard tradition of “three Dutch kisses” that one performs as a greeting when encountering anyone you know reasonably well. Not on the lips mind you, but kisses applied to the cheek, or just to the air next to the cheek—first to the right, then flipping around to do the same thing on the left, then flipping back round to the right. Three Dutch “kisses.”

This cultural convention at first seemed terribly intimate and intrusive to me. When I said so—my wife noted how she found the American greeting—which tends much more often to be a hug with those same friends and acquaintances—to be far more intimate and invasive. The Dutch, after all, do not press their bodies together like the Americans do.

It’s all in what your used to, I suppose. The “holy kiss” of Paul’s writing is one of those Biblical commands that we assume to be culturally constructed--just like the American hug or the three Dutch kisses. Even though the Holy Kiss shows up four different times in Paul’s letters as a command to the Christian community—you will notice that we do not obey this command (and to my knowledge, the Dutch churches don’t either). Herein then lies one of the interpretive principles of Bible reading.

When we read Paul’s letters, we are reading someone else’s mail. We are not the Thessalonians Paul was writing to. Nor do we live in the times with its cultural customs that the Thessalonians lived in. So when we interpret things like this, what we’re looking for is the intent or purpose of the command—a principle that can be applied in our own time, place, and culture.

So what was this “holy kiss”? Later in the early church, it became known as the “kiss of peace.” In some church traditions still today there is a section of the worship service called “passing the peace” which carries some residue from this practice. Even our own periodic “greet one another as God has greeted you” moments at the beginning of our service carries something of it.

The “holy kiss” was a moment in worship, often connected with the Lord’s Supper, where fellowship and unity was affirmed, but also where reconciliation was worked out. To offer this sign of intimate fellowship and unity required seeing the other as one whom Christ had forgiven and who I ought also to forgive (or confess before, as the case may be). A sense grew up in the churches of “con-spiring” together through this kiss—quite literally a “breathing together” or a sharing the “Spirit together.” For, as Paul says in Ephesians 4: “there is one body and one Spirit,” right after he implores the church to “keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Eph 4:3-4).

Whatever the cultural form—this remains an important command and a good reminder at the end of this letter. We ought always to continue to seek to manifest the one Spirit of Christ that makes the church Holy through working out—as tangibly as a kiss—our reconciliation with one another through confession and forgiveness. As we do so, may “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.”

As you journey on, go with the blessing of God:

May God himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together—spirit, soul, and body—and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ. The One who called you is completely dependable. If he said it, he’ll do it! The amazing grace of Jesus Christ be with you! (1 Thessalonians 5:23,24,28 The Message).