Baby Jesus Cookie

It's the Sunday after Christmas, the first Sunday of the New Year, and our church is celebrating Communion. We do not have Sunday school for children this first Sunday so the teachers can have a break. So I am sitting in church with my two-year-old son on my lap. Owen is still basking in the after Christmas glow.

It has been a magical season of Christmas lights, music, and lots of special treats filled with sugar. Only a few days ago we had left a plateful of sugary treats out for Santa, and my son had been full of questions about this ritual. I think he wasn't convinced he wanted to share his cookies with Santa. Finally, he began to catch on to the importance of bribing the person responsible for the gift-giving. Then he was very eager to load up the plate with goodies. He talked endlessly about the cookies we were leaving for Santa.

Back to Communion. The plate is coming down the aisle, and I try to head off inquisitiveness by whispering a brief explanation of the sacrament. I told him that this was something special for the adults to help us remember the gift that Jesus gave us. Owen asked me what was on the plate; I told him it was juice and a cracker. He thought for a moment and then responded in the sort of stage whisper that a child of two can only really master in public: Baby Jesus Cookie? Giggles were stifled all around us. Yes, I replied. It's a baby Jesus cookie.

I'm pretty sure that somehow the cookies we left for Santa and the blessed elements of Communion were now combined in his two-year-old mind into some sort of mystical gift-giving, snacking gloriousness. Leaving cookies for Santa gets you presents. We remember Jesus' gift by eating a special cracker and drinking juice at church.

I was remembering this story this week because the after-Christmas-Sunday-school-hiatus-Communion-Sunday convergence occurred again recently. It's been a year, but I thought I'd try to stifle snack whining when I saw the tray being passed. Again, I emphasized to both my kids that this was just for adults: to remember the gift of Christ. At lunch, we were peppered with questions. We tried to explain the sacrament of Communion to no avail. The juice represents Jesus' blood, the bread represents his body, we eat them to remind us of the gift of salvation Jesus gave us when he died on the cross.

As a parent, I'm constantly humbled by the task of trying to explain things to my kids--particularly in the area of theology. We did our best with Communion, but I think it will be many years--perhaps when they are trying to explain it to their own kids--before my kids are able to begin to grasp the gift that Jesus gave.