Blue Christmas: A Reflection From The 137th Psalm

Blue Christmas: A Reflection from the 137th Psalm

Christmas is supposed to be a season of joy. It is a time we reflect upon the heavenly army singing “Peace on Earth and goodwill to men. Even the world joins in with Christmas lights and parties and singing songs like “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas. Holly is indeed pretty, but it also has sharp prickly leaves. And for many, they do not see the beauty, all they feel is the stabbing pain. They are more likely to sing “Blue Christmas” rather than “White Christmas.” This is because there are so many people in pain. Some have suffered from illness personally or in the family. Some have lost their spouses to death. Some have lost their jobs in the pandemic. Some have lost their homes or are about to lose their homes. Many are alarmed at political and world events. These things weigh heavily upon the holiday. It is hard to put on the expected show in grief. This problem has become so great that some churches even hold a Blue Christmas service on the longest night of the year, at least in the Northern Hemisphere. It involves things like empty chairs representing those whom we once celebrated Christmas with and are no longer with us.

Problems with the message of Christmas are not new. The famed poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a Christmas Carol called “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” He mentions that they played all the familiar carols. They proclaimed the message of Peace on Earth. Yet Longfellow was troubled with the fact that he could not find any peace on earth. There was so much war. “There is no peace on earth, I said.” Edmund Sears echoed this in “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear.” The message of the angels was struggling to be heard among the Babel sounds of the world. He yearned for the day that the message of Peace on Earth and goodwill to men might be as clearly heard as the starry night sky. Vincent Van Gogh painted “Starry, Starry Night.” He was a man raised in church and heard the carols of Christmas. Yet in all the field of stars, he struggled all his life to find the Christmas Star. What tragic grief he suffered. He could not live with it. We hear “O Holy Night” and gloss over the words “For the slave is our brother.” We are still waiting for all oppression to cease.

Long before the first Christmas, the Jewish people were exiles in Babylon. The writer of the 137th Psalm records that the people sat down weeping by the rivers of Babylon. They hung their harps on the surrounding willow trees. They were in no mood to sing the happy songs of Zion. Their captors tormented them to sing one of those mirthful songs. They are like those who are captured this Christmas and asked to sing the carols and wish one another “Merry Christmas” when they would rather respond with “Bah! Humbug.” The people know they should be joyful and merry, but the sense of grief and loss is overwhelming. We want to join in with the psalmist: “How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a strange land?”

The psalmist showed anger over the plight of the captives and is honest about it. He wants to remember the goodness of the LORD. He makes an oath that he will not forget. He wants to prefer Jerusalem as his chief joy. He is in deep sadness but wants joy. How many people in the world desire the same.

The psalmist takes a vengeful tone. He wants to repay the captors with the same treatment with which they suffered. He wants Edom who in some way betrayed Israel as well as Babylon to be utterly destroyed. The ending of the psalm is most distressing. He wants their children to be dashed on the rocks just like the Jewish children had been. The idea of a eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth cries out. It is not a cry of forgiveness but the lust for vengeance. The Christian writer C. S Lewis was much troubled by the attitude of the psalm and wondered how it made the Scripture. Indeed, this sounds foreign to the Christian message of forgiveness and reconciliation. Yet, God has included it for a purpose. We also see the cry for divine vengeance by persecuted Christians in the Book of Revelation: “How long, O LORD!” When was the LORD going to avenge them? (Revelation 6:10) The Bible does say that God will repay those who hurt His anointed. But He also says not to take personal vengeance. He says: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” ( Romans 12:19) He also says that we should pray for those who despitefully use us. (Luke 6:28)