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)
So when we are mocked by the world and asked to sing a Christmas song, we have to respond to our higher calling. Anger is not the proper response. The psalmist was before Christ and the day the Army of Christ called out “Peace on Earth” rather than “war.” We who were once at enmity against God have been reconciled by this child born on Christmas day. (See Romans 5) The mockings we suffer at the hands of unbelievers as well as the sorrows we might feel due to personal loss in this season has been placed upon the one who “bore our griefs and carries our sorrows.” (Isaiah 53:4)
So how do we resolve the message of the first Christmas in light of mockers and the losses we have felt? First of all, it is appropriate to be honest about our feelings rather than just saying what we ought to say. Grief and loss are real. Let’s acknowledge this. And if we have occasion to celebrate Christmas without these burdens. Let us be sensitive to others who are grieving. Let us not be their mockers but their encouragers. The Christian truly has the answer to death. Even those who are in deep grief and the shadow of death realize this. Let us take time to sit upon their ash heaps and listen. The Lord will work this out in them in due season. Let us remember that even Jesus took time to weep at the tomb of Lazarus. This was in spite of the fact that He already knew He was going to raise Lazarus. The shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept” is one of the most profound. The time will come when the harps will be taken down from the trees, and the songs of Zion played again.
Longfellow does find resolution for his distress in “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep. The wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth goodwill to men.” Hate will no longer mock the sound of the bells. He comes to peace with the final “Peace on earth, goodwill to men.” Yes, Edmund Sears, the angel’s song shall prevail. The chains will break, there will be no more slavery. No one will be oppressed. Only one Star shines brightly in the starry, starry night. It is Jesus who is the Morning Star.
One of the old songs of the Christmas/Advent season is Philipp Nikolai’s “How Brightly Shines the Morning Star. Nikolai was a Lutheran who suffered many things in His life. You see the acknowledgement of sadness in his words. But there is the expectancy of gladness also. Gloom does not have the last word. Hope does. How much happier we would be if we did not just cave into songs like “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” or “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree.” Let us find the ray of gladness in the gloom of our sadness. We no longer have to put on a false face. I may be mourning now, but the morning of the Eternal Day is coming.
The offer of “Peace on Earth; goodwill to men cries out. The world is in gloom. There are lockdowns. We are told not to celebrate Christmas. We are not to be with family. We cannot sing any songs. We are not to go to church. Yet the world mocks us by flagrantly making exceptions to the rules for themselves. While realizing that the world is quite “blue”, it is our calling to offer the true message of the season. Jesus joined us in our sorrows. He came down from heaven and dwelt among us. He was personally acquainted with grief, loss and sorrow. He came to save us from our sin and to bring us unto Him. Let us preach this message for this is the way to peace and the favor of God resting upon them.
