The real meaning of Christmas

POMPTON LAKES  The piercing blue eyes of a Baby Jesus figurine stare up from a wooden crib on the back deck of a house on Sunset Terrace in Wayne — part of an unusual manger scene which recalls more than the Holy Family’s long journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem and Christ’s birth. The crèche outside the home of Robert and Jean Barkovitz also tells the story of Jesus’ humble beginnings and love for the forgotten with the fascinating journey of its baby figurine — which casual onlookers could not know — from abandoned doll on the roadside to object of admiration this Christmas.

With hands open to welcome onlookers, the adorable Christ Child wears a little baby-blue tunic with tan belt in the crib — a forgotten dark-skinned doll that Robert Barkovitz, a parishioner of St. Mary’s here rescued from the side of the road on Alps Road close to DePaul Catholic High School. Through a providential mix of discovery, inspiration and re-purposing, the retired high-school physics teacher created a striking devotional, which he lovingly calls “Baby Jesus on the Deck,” in time for the Christmas season, which ends on Jan. 6, the Feast of the Epiphany.

“The neighbors have seen the manger and it has gotten good reviews. It ended up looking great,” said Barkovitz, who serves at St. Mary’s as an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion, who visits the homebound, and with wife Jean, participates in the Franciscan-run parish’s Stephen Ministry and food pantry. “The crèche dramatizes the real meaning of Christmas — the birth of our Savior. It also tells the story of a Baby — Jesus — that nobody wanted — like the lost doll. The stone that the builders rejected became the cornerstone [Jesus],” he said, paraphrasing what Christ told his disciples in Matt. 21:42.

On one of his daily jogs around Wayne in November, Barkovitz stumbled upon an abandoned doll, lying on the side of the road. One of its arms had been broken off and its clothes were dirty. He propped it up on a nearby telephone pole, thinking that its owner, or someone else, might pick it up. After the doll sat there for about two weeks, he carried it home. There it sat on his workbench, he said.

Originally, Barkovitz thought about fixing the doll for his new granddaughter, now 7 months old. His wife told him that she was “not thrilled” with the idea and asked him, “What are you going to do with it?”

Inspiration struck Barkovitz during a continuing religious formation meeting for ministers of Stephen Ministries at St. Mary’s. Named for St. Stephen, Stephen Ministry trains lay leaders and volunteers to lend a listening ear to those in need. Ministers extend mercy, kindness and compassion, according to St. Mary’s website, www.stmarys-pompton.org.

“We watched a movie about St. Francis of Assisi, which said that he popularized the manger scene to help elicit the joy of Jesus’ birth from the townspeople of Greccio, Italy. So I thought, ‘I’m going to make a manger from scrap wood that I have and feature the forsaken doll in it,’ ” Barkovitz said.

For a few hours one day, Barkovitz labored in his workshop, constructing with his table saw a crib from plans he saw on the internet — a design of slats that connect two wooden “X’s” at the head and foot of the bed. At first, he thought about painting the crib white but followed his wife’s advice and kept it rough and unfinished. Then, he made a wooden cross and an angel for above Baby Jesus’ head and placed straw in the crib from dried up reeds from his property.

Afterward, Barkovitz fixed the doll’s arm and fashioned a tunic out of some rags and a belt out of thin rope. He mounted the manger on a lectern in his shop and placed it on a white railing at the front of the deck in the back of his house. The lectern tilts the crèche, so neighbors walking or driving on Brookwood Drive, the side street at the corner of the backyard, can see it. At night, a spotlight illuminates the manger.

“Bob’s inspiring story challenges all of us to see as God sees — seeing tremendous value and worth in those things that others have cast aside…[and] to bring forth Christ into this world; to be Christ to each other,” said Franciscan Father John Aherne, St. Mary’s parochial vicar.

The doll is one of many objects that Barkovitz has found in his 30 years of jogging through Wayne.

“The crèche is perfect. It’s beautiful,” his wife, Jean said. “This year, we have Jesus on our front lawn and in the back. We are a family of faith-filled Catholics. I like that when people walk or drive by, they know that we believe in Jesus, the reason for Christmas,” she said.