Grieving Jackson

It's been 6 weeks since his sudden and violent death, and yesterday the body of young Jackson Willy was finally sent some 600 km north and $1000.00 Cdn/Aus dollars later to be buried on his parent’s traditional land. As is always the case, it forced a kind of crisis of cultures on me (Ian) when I was again asked to lead their funeral service or haus krai (house cry). In the West death is too sanitary, too hidden. Generally speaking in the South it is too exposed, too raw…or maybe just real. The painted faces and bodies with coloured clay, the heart-wrenching wailing, the great cacophony of groans and shrieks, the sense that I am invading a nuclear family’s last respects (even though the family is 150 large), the throwing of dirt and hands and limbs and not to mention the body beginning the decaying process, left me trying to find my cultural-bearings. What am I to do here? I did what Christ has called me to do: I opened His Word and preached from Lamentations 3:16-29, trying to pour out the rich promises of the Scriptures in the face of death and challenged them to look for the reason for hope in the face of death and sin--Jesus Christ. Sadly, many of the ones who were wailing, in what seemed to be in utter despair, only moved a few houses down and kept on going as I preached. After the ‘service’ we sang, “How great thou art’ in Pidgin and the body was trucked away to the airport. I pray some found hope in the solid reality that Christ has risen victoriously over death.