Santa Shares a Deeply Human Moment Granting a Child's Final Wish

The Wired Word for the Week of December 18, 2016

In the News

NOTE: Just as we were about to release this lesson, we learned that the original reporting source, the Knoxville News Sentinel, is now saying that upon further investigation, they cannot verify this story (see their new report here). We don't think that renders the overall lesson about being channels of God's grace in hopeless situations any less useful, but in the interest of journalistic reliability, we felt it important to make you aware of this new development.

Eric Schmitt-Matzen, 60, is the president of a manufacturing company in Jacksboro, Tennessee, but he also works about 80 gigs a year portraying Santa Claus, a role for which he is a great fit.

He's six feet tall, weighs 310 pounds, has a long, snowy white beard and a moustache with the ends curled into loops. When in character, he wears a custom-made red suit, but even in civvies, he wears Santa suspenders. And his wife Sharon often plays a convincing Mrs. Claus alongside him.

Santa is a role that usually brings Schmitt-Matzen a lot of joy, but a recent visit as Santa tore his heart open and caused him to wonder if he'd ever be able to play the part again.

Here's what happened: He'd just gotten home from work when he received a phone call from a nurse he knows who works at the hospital. She was caring for a terminally ill 5-year-old boy who was worried that he was going to miss Christmas. Could "Santa" come? she asked.

Schmitt-Matzen agreed right away, but when he said he needed a few minutes to change into his Santa suit, the nurse said there wasn't time. His Santa suspenders were good enough.

He got to the hospital in 15 minutes, and on arrival, met the boy's mother and other family members. The mother had purchased a toy from the children's TV show PAW Patrol and handed it to Santa to give to her son. Grasping the depth of the group's sadness, Schmitt-Matzen said, "If you think you're going to lose it, please leave the room. If I see you crying, I'll break down and can't do my job."

The family members chose to wait outside the room, sobbing while they watched through the window.

Sam Venable, who reported this story for the Knoxville News Sentinel, from which it was subsequently picked up by several national news sources, reported the meeting between Santa and the child in Schmitt-Matzen's own words, but Venable said he did not include the several pauses Schmitt-Matzen took "while struggling to maintain composure."

"When I walked in, he was laying there, so weak it looked like he was ready to fall asleep. I sat down on his bed and asked, 'Say, what's this I hear about you're gonna miss Christmas? There's no way you can miss Christmas! Why, you're my Number One elf!

"He looked up and said, 'I am?'

"I said, 'Sure!'

"I gave him the present. He was so weak he could barely open the wrapping paper. When he saw what was inside, he flashed a big smile and laid his head back down.

'"They say I'm gonna die,' he told me. 'How can I tell when I get to where I'm going?'

"I said, 'Can you do me a big favor?'

"He said, 'Sure!'

"When you get there, you tell 'em you're Santa's Number One elf, and I know they'll let you in.

"He said, 'They will?'

"I said, 'Sure!'

"He kinda sat up and gave me a big hug and asked one more question: 'Santa, can you help me?'

"I wrapped my arms around him. Before I could say anything, he died right there. I let him stay, just kept hugging and holding on to him.

"Everyone outside the room realized what happened. His mother ran in. She was screaming, 'No, no, not yet!' I handed her son back and left as fast as I could.

"I spent four years in the Army with the 75th Rangers, and I've seen my share of [stuff]. But I ran by the nurses' station bawling my head off. I know nurses and doctors see things like that every day, but I don't know how they can take it.'"

The next day, the Schmitt-Matzens were scheduled to visit their grandchildren in Nashville, but the despairing Santa portrayer realized he was a "basket case" and told his wife to go without him. And in the days that followed, Schmitt-Matzen wondered if he could ever portray Santa again.

He did eventually work another appearance as Santa, and he says that seeing all the children laughing made him realize that he had a role to continue to play that was important, both to the children and to himself.

We think he's right on both counts.

More on this story can be found at these links:

Santa Grants a Final Wish. Knoxville News Sentinel
Eric J. Schmitt-Matzen. Facebook

The Big Questions

1. Where was God's grace, if at all, in the Santa-child encounter? Have you ever unexpectedly been the one to be with someone as he or she moved beyond life? Were you ready for it? Is it better not to know in advance? What role did your Christian faith play?

2. When have you encountered a situation where "nothing more can be done" and still done what you could? Are there any ways in which your action might have been a channel for God's grace? What makes you think so? What is the effect of showing up when others are in grief?

3. What in your faith helps you to carry on when the "why" questions of life are not answered? Do you need answers or presence -- either divine or human -- or something else, and if so, what?

4. Where and how does God meet you in the pain of life? Who helps you through difficult moments? How do you share emotional burdens?

5. If you are someone who is often present at death (medical personnel, hospice personnel, pastor, etc.), what strategies do you use, if any, to maintain composure or professionalism? Do you have coping strategies that involve allowing for emotional release at a later point?

Confronting the News With Scripture and HopeHere are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:

Acts 9:36-39Now in Joppa there was a disciple whose name was Tabitha. ... At that time she became ill and died. ... the disciples, who heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him with the request, "Please come to us without delay." … when he arrived, they took him to the room upstairs. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other clothing that [Tabitha] had made while she was with them. (For context, read 9:36-42.)

When a good Christian woman named Tabitha died, some friends asked the apostle Peter to come over. When he got there, he found a group of widows weeping. These women were likely friends of Tabitha's from the neighborhood. And they didn't know -- perhaps even Peter didn't know -- that God would be restoring Tabitha to life.

With Tabitha dead, there wasn't much her friends could do, but they showed up anyway. Along with weeping, they'd probably done the few dishes left in Tabitha's sink, gave her house a quick dusting and did some tidying up. Maybe they'd swept her sidewalk. It wasn't much, but they showed up to do what they could, and they cried with Tabitha's family.

There are sad times in life when there isn't anything we can do that will change the outcome, and yet, because we care, we show up anyway. Maybe we look for some little thing that the grieving person has overlooked, and do it. Maybe we bring cookies. Maybe we offer to watch the children for a few hours. Maybe we hold our hand over our heart as the flag-draped casket goes by on the back of a fire truck. We say a prayer. Or maybe we just sit with the grieving person and cry with them. Tiny gestures have a huge importance to someone who is grieving. Often, what we do seems like almost nothing, and yet it sometimes means almost everything.

Of course, feeling compassion does not always mean actually weeping with someone. It means making ourselves available to someone who is suffering, putting aside our own concerns long enough to, in some measure, go through the suffering with them.

We suspect that at least 80 percent of compassion is showing up.

Questions: What do you think Peter was feeling as he traveled to Tabitha's home? When has someone's small gesture been a comfort to you?

Psalm 34:17-18When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears,
   and rescues them from all their troubles.
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted,
   and saves the crushed in spirit. (For context, read 34:15-22.)

Taken in isolation, the first two lines above seem to indicate that the righteous receive special help from the Lord because of their good behavior. But the larger context of this psalm asserts otherwise. Verse 15 speaks about the righteous having reasons to cry, and verse 19 says "Many are the afflictions of the righteous …." Rather, the promise of this psalm is in the second two lines above: God is with the brokenhearted and those crushed in spirit.

In other words, God himself can be experienced in a comforting way even in the midst of suffering.

Questions: What do you think led the psalmist to write these words? In what ways can you affirm them? In what ways do they not speak to your experience?

John 11:33, 35
When Jesus saw [Mary] weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. … Jesus began to weep. (For context, read 11:17-44.)

Jesus' tears in this situation are sometimes taken to show that he wept in sympathy with Mary and Martha who were grieving over the death of their brother Lazarus. He knew he intended to raise Lazarus back to life, but still, standing with the dead man's sisters, Jesus wept.

But if we read the context, there's more going on. For when Jesus saw Mary and her neighbors weeping, he was, in the words above, "greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved." A surface reading of this phrase suggests that Jesus felt deep compassion at that point, but Bible scholars tell us that the underlying Greek words communicate not compassion, but agitation and indignation. The Message Bible renders the verse truer to the original when it words it, "When Jesus saw her sobbing and the Jews with her sobbing, a deep anger welled up within him."

It's not clear what his anger was about. Commentators offer several conjectures, ranging from his disgust with the lack of faith of those around him to a general rage at the circumstances to a viewing of death as a gross injustice.

But emotions are not tidy and do not always correspond point for point to what is going on outside of us. There are times when we are wrenched with deep emotions and we can't say exactly why. And other times, when we've dealt with the pain and hurt of life firsthand and seemed to have held it all together, there later comes an emotional sucker punch, unrelated to our present circumstances, that knocks us off our feet.

So here, there appears to be something more going on inside of Jesus, something we cannot easily reduce to words.

We can, however, understand something about cascading emotions that we cannot easily trace to a particular source. Here's Jesus, who knows that he's soon going to suffer horribly and die. Here's Jesus, who's just learned that his friend Lazarus has been dead for four days. Here's Jesus, accused by the two sisters of not caring enough to hurry to Lazarus' side when he got the news. Here's Jesus, seeing his good friend Mary crumbling in front of him in tears of grief. Here's Jesus, surrounded by people who are sobbing. And he begins sobbing himself.

Some of the eyewitnesses that day saw Jesus' tears and said, "See how he loved [Lazarus]!" (v. 36). But it's not clear that they understood. It may be too simple an explanation to say that Jesus cried only out of love for his dead friend or out of compassion for Martha and Mary. It may also be too simple to say he was angry at death. It's possible that Jesus was being ripped to shreds inside.

It's helpful for us to know that because we too have emotional crashes. It's helpful for us to realize that Jesus' tears were possibly not merely ones of sadness, but of the weight of life.

Questions: In light of the fact that Jesus knew he was going to raise Lazarus, what do you think accounts for his strong emotional reaction? What does this scene teach you about Jesus?

Mark 10:13, 16
People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them ... And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them. (No context needed.)

Question: What are some equivalences and differences, if any, between what Jesus did here in this passage and what Schmitt-Matzen did in the hospital room with the dying boy? Explain your response.

Revelation 21:3, 4See, the home of God is among mortals. … he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more …. (For context read 21:1-7.)

It is a significant commentary on the pain life sometimes brings that in the Bible's vision of the kingdom of God fully come, there is no crying -- and nothing to cause the need for it.

This reflects the great affirmation all Christians share, and that is that in Christ, the end is not the end. In Christ, what we call the end is the great beginning of eternity. We hold in common that powerful reality that Jesus both taught in words and demonstrated with his resurrection: The end is not the end.  

Questions: What do you think it will be like to live without pain or any need for crying? In what ways, if any, does that help you now, in this life?

For Further Discussion

Invite your class members to respond to as many of the following entries as time permits:

1. Jeanine Purdum, a nurse who spent years caring for children, comments that when a child dies, it affects the staff deeply, who often have to defer their own crying while they attend to the necessary things that must be done at such times. But she has also observed that it sometimes helps a grieving family when staff members weep along with them.

2. TWW editorial team member Mary Sells observes: "Perhaps one of the hardest questions we ask God is 'why,' especially when a young person dies. The assumption we make? That God's answer will be so enlightening to our hearts and minds that our question will be resolved. Yet, I think God gives us mystery instead of answers, for what answer to 'why' can comfort a parent in their great loss? It is divine mystery that we accept in our hearts what our minds cannot fathom."

3. This also from Mary Sells: "To me, it appears Santa thought he was giving a jolly hug to lift the child's spirit, not a hand to a helpless child who needed assurance as he breathed his last. I believe God gave the child what he needed -- a representative of love and kindness and joy -- as a bridge. Maybe for another person the bridge is different, for God knows our heart's greatest desires and fears and wants to show his love -- especially when we are most needy. I'm not sure yet what the gift is for Santa, for I would also be as devastated as he was; however, I do believe that God will bring comfort also to him."

4. TWW editorial team member Stan Purdum tells of his father, who was a pastor, once having to bury two small children -- a brother and sister -- who drowned in a pond. His father had all he could do to keep himself together to conduct the funeral and actually wept during the process. Stan says, "It gave me a glimpse of my father's tender heart, and I respected him for it."

5. TWW editorial team member Rev. David Lee comments, "One of the things I'm often asked by those who are aware of their own end coming is 'Was I good enough?' as if they might earn God's grace somehow.  How do we merit grace?  We can't. Often my answer is to point out to the person (usually a 'saint' but sometimes a 'sinner'), the good that they did, the legacy they left, but also to point out that humbly asking means humbly receiving.

6. We read somewhere about a woman who was having marital problems, and it looked like she and her husband were headed for a divorce. The woman confided her hurt and anger to her best friend. The friend listened and even cried with her. A week later, the friend was hospitalized for a serious surgery. When the first woman went to see her in the hospital she asked her friend why she hadn't mentioned that she was seriously ill. From the bed the friend said, "I forgot I was. I was thinking of you." That's showing up for someone.

7. Sometimes we may hesitate to show up for someone in their pain because the pain of wounds from our own losses is still with us. Yet Christ does not call us to reach out only when we are on solid ground ourselves. There is an old legend in the Talmud, the collection of ancient rabbinic writings that is a basis of religious authority in the Jewish faith. It goes like this:
            Rabbi Yoshua ben Levi came upon Elijah the prophet ... He asked Elijah, "When will the Messiah come?"
            Elijah replied, "Go ask him yourself."
            "Where is he?"
            "Sitting at the gates of the city."
            "How shall I know him?"
            "He is sitting among the poor covered with wounds. The others unbind all their wounds at the same time and then bind them up again. But he unbinds one at a time and binds it up again, saying to himself, 'Perhaps I shall be needed: If so, I must always be ready so as not to delay for a moment.'" (Quoted by Henri J.M. Nouwen in The Wounded Healer.) 
            Even we who are wounded can be healers when we give the gift of ourselves. That's an act of Christian love. As we already stated, at least 80 percent of compassion is showing up.

Responding to the News

This is a good time to consider for whom you might need to show up right now.

Prayer

O Lord, make me ready to show up and be a carrier of your grace, even when I can't see how that is even possible. In Jesus' name. Amen.