Kissing Cousins

We have all heard of, or perhaps witnessed, strange marriages.  Like Jack Spratt, who would eat no fat and his wife, who would eat no lean, some partnerships seem to thrive as a combination of opposites.  At least Mr. and Mrs. Spratt would have had fewer arguments over Sunday dinner.  Wherever love is, there are at least two different personalities.  What is true for us, in this regard, extends all the way to the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, three Persons in love.


   Here on earth, differences can also create the potential for conflict, sometimes with those whom we love, such as between parents and children, or husbands and wives, and who hasn't experienced sibling rivalry!  Does it need to be this way?  I can still hear my mother saying to us when we were young, "Why can't you learn to get along?"


   In Psalm 85, we find a song of deliverance from animosity and pain and bitter discord.  In this case the parties are God and His people Israel.  Sent into captivity for their sins, --this has been the theme of the prophet Ezekiel, among others, whom we have been reading lately--they longed to return to the land that God had given them.   Hadn't they been punished enough?
       "Wilt thou be angry with us forever?" they asked.
They longed for reconciliation with God, when
       "He will speak peace to His people, to his saints, to those who turn to Him in their hearts."
The King James version translates this last phrase as " only let them not turn back to folly."  Either way, it works.


   And God gave them their heart's desire, forgiving their sin and bringing them home, so they sang:
      "Mercy and truth have met together."
Two irreconcilables, sinful humanity and a holy God, brought back into harmony with one another, and the beauty was palpable:
      "Righteousness and peace have kissed each other."
Who could do this, and how could He have brought it about?  Well, that is story of a greater Prophet, in a different, New Testament, time.  But here we have the gist of it, two very different children, mercy and truth, sharing a similar lineage, who are indeed, like righteousness and peace, kissing cousins.