Lent #12:  Social Distancing.

Greet one another with a holy kiss.

(First Corinthians 16:20)

Virtual Church this morning. No gathering. No greeting. No touching. No affection, No “holy kiss.” We gathered with friends for dinner last night. We were all a bit leery. How should we greet? Our gracious hostess prepared her table with a few extra leaves to create some distance around the table for the six of us. Then, there was the departure, catching us again with this strange new reality. What to do? We couldn’t help but take the risk; maybe not quite as exuberant, fun and free as in times past; but, there were hugs nonetheless.

Malevolence, like this malevolent virus, has a way of distancing ourselves from one another. Maybe this is our surprise Lenten Suffering. That’s how our Lord’s suffered, only more so: “Eli, Eli,lemasabachthani?” A cry from the cross so memorable that Matthew keeps the exact Aramaic words, before translating it for us: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Or, maybe Matthew keeps the Aramaic because they are the exact words that begin Psalm 22. To those who know the Psalm, like those first hearers, they know that’s not how the lament ends. It ends with “Proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn (that’s us), saying that he has done it [for our salvation]” (Ps 22:31).

Our present social distancing reminds us what a gracious gift it is to gather together and to “greet one another with a holy kiss.” Virtual church will not do. We long for the real thing: “I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face,” John writes to his congregation, “so that our joy may be complete” (2Jn & 3Jn). There’s even a greater joy that awaits us when “we shall see His face” (Rv 22:4).