In the Manger with Jesus

 

Young children have a hard time understanding complex ideas and things they can’t see. This is why they say the darndest things as adults struggle to explain concepts like God, death, and the small microbes that live on their grubby little fingers which they should wash before supper.

My nephew, we’ll call him Sebastien, was four years old when my father passed away. Dad had Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, and while he had trouble breathing and didn't have much energy, he always had time to read a story or share some red grapes with Sebastien. There were lots of naps in the big easy chair with Grampa. When Dad got sicker, the chair was moved out of the front room to make way for a hospital bed. Dad died on December 24, 2009, as my brother and I held his hands and my mother stroked his face.  

At Sebastien’s house, his mother struggled to explain what had happened. Why there would be no more naps, stories or grapes with Grampa.

“His get-better-bed didn’t work,” she said. “He’s gone to be in heaven with Jesus.”

“But everyone knows that Jesus is just pretend,” he cried. “Grampa is for real.”

My sister-in-law tried valiantly to break it down for Sebastien. She smiled, wrapped her arms around her own waist, and said, “The part of Grampa that was inside of him – the part that loved you and gave you hugs – that part of Grampa is with Jesus. They both love you, very much.”

Sebastien nodded. A difficult conversation seemed complete.

The next morning, Christmas, brought a lull in the sadness as Sebastien and his siblings tucked into stockings and ripped open presents by the tree. Later at a church service marking the true meaning of Christmas, Jesus’s birth, Sebastien tried to explain the true meaning of death to a young friend. During a pause in the sermon, with nary a congregant cough or candy wrapper crinkle, Sebastien pointed to the creche and declared, “My Grampa’s stomach is in the manger with Jesus!”

My nephew is now a strapping young man who may have a better understanding of God and death. I’m not sure I do. I believe in God, but struggle to understand death, especially in a world where so much of it is caused by man in the name of religion. How can we explain that? How can we explain how good and decent, young and old human beings can be starved to death and bombed to dust simply because of what they believe or where they live?

Last week, I attended the funeral of a 94-year-old uncle. At the reception, chatting with the pastor who’d given the eulogy, we both remarked how difficult losses can be tempered with humour. I remember my father’s life. How certain I was of his love and protection, his deeply held ethics and empathy, how he loved to play his guitar and make people laugh. But of his death, I recall barely anything, and understand even less.

I told the pastor what I did remember, which is what Sebastien had blurted out in church. We laughed and agreed that grief is hard and sometimes the darndest thing is the easiest to hang on to. For all we know, our internal organs do, in some way, ride out eternity in the manger with Jesus.