Kissing Goes Back 21 Million Years? Holy!

 

   The Kiss Of Judas in The Garden Of Gethsemane -- Giotto,  Scrovegni Chapel.-14th C Padua. Italy. 

Finally, brothers and sisters, farewell. Be restored; listen to my appeal; 

agree with one another; live in peace; 

and the God of love and peace will be with you. 

 Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you.

2 Corinthians 13: 11-12 NRSVue

You must remember this

A kiss is still a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by...

 It turns out we humans have been smooching for a long, long time. Researchers from Oxford University opine that kissing predates what we would term humanity although they can only speculate why kissing got started. According to a BBC article: 

Their study suggests that the mouth-on-mouth kiss evolved more than 21 million years ago, and was something that the common ancestor of humans and other great apes probably indulged in.

The same research concluded that Neanderthals may have kissed too – and that humans and Neanderthals may even have smooched one another.

The scientists studied kissing because it presents something of an evolutionary puzzle - it has no obvious survival or reproductive benefits, and yet it is something that is seen not just in many human societies, but across the animal kingdom.  

I immediately thought of Judas kissing Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, an act of betrayal that led to Jesus'  arrest and crucifixion. Was a duplicitous kiss essential to our salvation? 

There are dozens of kisses in the bible, acts of greeting and even intimacy, although not amorous. In the New Testament early Christians were instructed to kiss one another within the context of worship. 

In our congregation the pandemic put an end to even touching hands during the moment of greeting in the Sunday service. I think Rev. Isaac should get us all to make chimp noises and lay a kiss on one another for a change, although that might be his last Sunday. 

                                                              Us, Lower Right, Before our Morning Coffee