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| Zach's hands now, no longer chubby but still busy! |
The Lord’s Supper
September 2005
Early this spring our family celebrated with my son as he gave his life to Jesus and was baptized. We had a big party where he received no less than three monogrammed Bibles. It was a precious time we will always remember. Last Sunday we celebrated my son’s first long awaited Lord’s Supper. I came to church with my son in hand ready for an uplifting and spiritually bonding experience. As the service began, Zachary squirmed more than usual with his characteristic nervous energy. Since his discovery of video games the rest of his body has to be moving if his hands are required to be still. He tried to chatter through the songs and prayers, only to be shushed. As the little trays of bread came around, he became positively exuberant wanting to hold the tray himself and asking questions about the timing and the taste. I whispered a suggestion that this is the time we think about Jesus. He looked back at me with a familiar suspicious glance he gives me when he suspects I’m using Jesus to get my way. As the time finally approached to eat the bread, he popped his in his mouth, chewed furiously, then commented to me that it was tasty, leaving me torn between a frustrated reprimand and a giggle. This child is so funny, it’s hard to stay serious. As the service stretches along we have more wiggling and questions right before a tug-of-war over the tray holding the juice cups. Again, Zachary was adamant about holding the tray himself. I was equally adamant about not having a grape juice catastrophe in our pew. He was so curious about the taste of this particular grape juice that he couldn’t stop his tongue from one little lick during the prayer. Again I fought the giggle. By the time I got his critique of the yummy taste of the juice I realized with distracted wonder that this yummy grape juice is most likely the same kind of juice he refused to drink for breakfast the day before. I was very disappointed. Not because of Zachary’s cute little eager comments or even his wiggles, but because he seemed to miss the meaning behind it all.
I have a secret place in my heart where worries over my children live. These worries bounce from bullies to leukemia to drugs to crooked teeth to estrangement to picky eating to rejection of God. Although most moms have these fears, only God really sees them. In our pride, we tend to hide them from each other. Only God knows the scenarios I’ve imagined in my quest for perfect mothering. Only God knows the relief I felt when Zachary gave his life to Jesus. And only God knows the fear that returned when my son seemed to trivialize something as important as the Lord’s Supper. I murmured a complaint to the Prince of Peace and He sent me two memories. I remembered sitting next to my mother during the Lord’s Supper and studying her hands while she held the Lord’s Supper cracker. I remember being excited that I too held a wafer in my own hand. Always before my mother would pinch off the corner of her cracker and let me taste it. I suspect her sharing was only because in the church where I grew up the Lord’s Supper crackers really were tasty, and homemade! Zachary would have been truly inspired by these yummy wafers that tasted just like pie crust. This time I had my own, not pinch of mom’s! In my memory I could see the green color in the sanctuary as the day turned toward evening and the big glass chandeliers gracefully took over the job of lighting the sanctuary from the fading sunshine coming through blue and green stained glass windows. I, like Zachary, was obsessed with the taste of the bread and the smell of the juice and wished out loud for little cups like that for my own room. But what I remember most is that through distracted thoughts of juice and pie crusts I felt included and I knew that what the grown ups around me were celebrating was important. I knew that this community of believers were loved by God and were loving Him back, and that I was one of them. As a teenager I remember sitting with the same church celebrating the same Lord’s Supper with the same pie crust wafers. This time we were in a newer sanctuary where the light had changed from green to blue. Even then the feeling of belonging was the same. I remember considering the sacrifice Jesus had made because of His great love for me and experiencing profound thankfulness. In those ten years from age seven to seventeen I grew into an appreciation and love for the Lord’s Supper because I was growing into a love for the Lord.
And so I’m thankful that God whispered these memories into the worry part of my heart. He reminded me that Zachary’s first Lord Supper was special because the Lord was there, and He is faithful to grow my son up to know and love Him. My part is not so significant. I was reminded to keep letting my Lord whisper peace over the worry part of my heart, to keep loving and appreciating what the Lord’s Supper represents, to live His way right in front of my children. I hope that Zachary has wonderful memories of church. But more than anything I pray that he will have a lifetime of memories of God’s faithfulness. I pray he has memories that all come rushing back when his own little child sticks his tongue in the grape juice. And God, if it’s possible, could I be there to see it? Now that would be worth a giggle.
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