I’ve Sent Her Legs To Hell…..

“I’ve Sent Her Legs To Hell…..”

I knew a man many years ago. He was a wonderful person to know. Very kind. Uncomplicated. Laid back. He was a good few years older than me at the time and I had the greatest of pleasures of calling him a friend.

We would talk of many things. But he was always curious about my interest in The Bible. Not in a bad way. You see, he was a very staunch denominational person while I attended other churches that were non-denominational. I would share many thoughts and musings from my Bible. But he just couldn’t grasp how he, as a lifelong member of a very long established denominational church, had never heard of some of the simple Bible stories I was telling him. (Not because I was in any way special, but more because his church was very lax in their teachings).

Anyway, we met up one time for our regular coffee and chat and his demeanour was so very downhearted. I asked him what was wrong but he didn’t talk. He wanted to, but was so very withdrawn that he couldn’t bring himself to say any words.

After a short time he folded his arms, leant forward on the table, and with whispered breath he said, “I think I have sent my mother’s legs to Hell”. It was an emotionally mixed moment for me. My demeanour could go either way. I could either burst out laughing at what he had said, or I could try to tap in to his mood and find out what exactly was ailing him. I am oh so thankful to this day that I chose the second option.

You see, his mother had been ill for a very long time. Over successive years of illness it meant that she had had to have her legs amputated. First one, and then the other. The hospital had asked him if he wanted them to dispose of the limbs in the usual way. He said that they could.  After these operations his mother lived out the rest of her life in reasonable health until her passing.

However he went on to tell me that over the weekend he had read an article in a regular Christian periodical about a local church which had a corner of a cemetery set aside for the burial of amputated limbs. So that, come the resurrection, the limbs would be restored to their rightful bodies.

The urge to burst out laughing was growing dramatically.

“I asked the hospital to dispose of those limbs in their usual manner. They cremated them. Have I sent my mother’s legs to hell?” he asked. (Somewhere along the line he had come to believe that cremation was something that would exclude you from Heaven). His mood was so very heavy. His face was so downcast.

I leaned in and said to him, “That’s not how it works”. I went on. “Come the resurrection all our bodies will be resurrected and made new. Made whole”.  His hands started to wring as his head bowed lower. His grief was palpable.

“Remember the Christians of olden days”, I said. “John the Baptist was beheaded. Does that mean his head went to some place while his body went to someplace else? Many Christians were burnt at the stake. Think of Latimer and Ridley, John Wycliff, and all those others. Were their bodies burnt and the ashes sent to Hell?”

His head started to lift. A glimmer of realisation started to alight in his eyes. “Think of all those people who were drowned or buried at sea. Their bodies dissolved into the oceans. They will all be resurrected anew as ‘the sea gives up their dead’.”

He sat bolt upright. Slapped the table and the biggest smile I have ever seen one his face. “You know. You’re right,” he said. “I have been so stupid. I have worried about that all weekend. My wife and family didn’t know what was wrong with me”.

We both burst out laughing.

I asked him to bring the article to me so that I could read it. He did, and I read it. Stupid article. Written in a supposedly respectable Christian periodical. I never gave him the magazine back. And he never asked for it again. I don’t think he ever read that magazine again for he shortly afterwards moved churches.

And I’ll always remember his smile - And his love for God as he moved away from that old church.