A baby is born in a time of genocide. His kind is to be killed; he is marked from
the moment of his birth. But when his
mother “saw how beautiful he was, she hid him for three months,” until she
could hide him no longer (Exodus 2:2).
Then, for a second time in three verses, the woman conceives – this time
a plan to prolong her son’s life. She
will waterproof a basket and place him in the river.
Can you imagine her, standing on the riverbank, readying and
steadying the small life raft? What does
she put in it along with him? A child so
young can’t feed himself, so nutrition would be pointless. A child so young can’t hold anything, so toys
would be pointless. Perhaps some
reminder of her, some clue to his origins?
Or perhaps she didn’t expect him to survive—she just didn’t want to
watch him killed.
She holds her boy close, thinking “no no no.” Then, subject to a silent sign, she kisses
him on the forehead, tugs his big toe, and places him into the basket and the
water. With a wrenching but imperceptible
push, she lets him go. All alone, he
ventures into a place no child ought to go, a place with crocodiles and
hippopotami and rapids and heat, into a place for which he is completely
unprepared, into a fate entirely uncertain.
This is what it means to be a parent, isn’t it? We protect and guard, and prepare them as
best as we can. Then, with the knowledge
that whatever time we’ve shared hasn’t been nearly enough, we release that baby
to an unknown fate. With a prayer and a
push, we send them into the wide and wild world, to become the people they will
become.
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