Holy Kisses

Judas offered Jesus a single kiss. The kiss of betrayal. How that must have hurt the heart of God. All the time they'd spent together, all the teaching, all the love-and then to be rejected that way. Jesus knew it was coming, of course, but even he seemed surprised by the chosen signal that night in Gethsemane. Can't you hear the pain in Luke 22:48 when Jesus asks, "Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?" Unlike Judas's stingy, mocking gesture, the loving attention Mary lavished upon the Savior's fee had nothing to do with manipulation or control. "I tell you the truth, " Jesus said in Mark 147:9, "wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her." And still the story is told-the story of a woman who loved so much she gave up just about everything. The sweet scent of Mary's extravagant sacrifice still lingers today. We sense the precious aroma of extravagant love rising once more to heaven each time one of God's children gives his or her everything to the One who gave his all. (From:Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World)