THE CHILD AND THE CUP

I held my niece for a little while during church yesterday.  She was bright-eyed and cheerful, and she pushed her small feet into my knees, practicing unknowingly for the day when she’ll be able to support her own weight.

Communion was tricky with a baby in my lap.  I held the cup out of her reach until it was empty and then let her take it from me.  She moved it around in her spidery fingers but she never dropped it, showing off the skills that she’s developed in the past nine months.  She has achieved so much more in such a short time.

She was warm between my hands, and though her legs were strong and her fingers dexterous, she felt vulnerable, as all humans are at first.  Mary cared for the baby Jesus because he was vulnerable – he could have commanded armies, but his skin was soft and his hands were small, and he needed her.  He put away power to be as weak as my niece – with legs that needed practice before they could hold his body and fingers that reached clumsily for the hand of a parent.  No human has ever chosen the vulnerability of childhood, but he did.

She turned the cup in her hands, over and over.  It is hard to imagine him being this small, and hard to imagine that drinking from a plastic cup has anything to do with Jesus on the night before he died.  He chose vulnerability twice – once when he was born into a cold world, and once when he died at the hands of the sons of that world.  We drink this small cup because we remember, and the face of every babe is a reminder that he was this helpless, though he was God. 

He told his friends that the wine they drank was his blood.  He told them he would die.  He told them he was vulnerable.

And she was small and weak as he was, and she held the cup of remembrance.