Rachel’s Lament

This Advent I have been working through W. H. Auden’s Christmas poem, “For the Time Being.” There is something to be said for viewing the familiar biblical story through someone else’s eyes. It is a helpful corrective to our cultural myopia to see through the eyes of someone from another time and place. Auden was an Englishman who was writing in Brooklyn during the turbulent years of the Second World War. 

We tend to view the first Christmas through the images and colors of Currier and Ives. It sells better. We picture a cozy stable bathed in starlight with angel’s voices singing in the background. We like snowy Christmas cards, Hallmark rom-coms, and feel-good television specials. We put out of our minds the brutality of first century Palestine. We omit the Slaughter of the Innocents and the Flight to Egypt from church Christmas pageants.  

The first Christmas was a time of violence. This Christmas is a time of violence in many places of the world, with more conflict likely on the horizon. At Christmas it is important to remember the Massacre of the Innocents, which was an act of government violence that forced the Holy Family to become refugees in a foreign land. It is not unlike the violence that forces families to leave their countries and huddle at America’s southern border, only to be told there is no room in the American Inn. 

The Lament of Rachel is ringing in my ears this Christmas. It voices the grief of the mothers of Bethlehem whose children were killed by the soldiers of Herod, king in Jerusalem. The words in the biblical Christmas account are from the prophet Jeremiah: 

“A voice is heard in Ramah, 

    weeping and great mourning, 

Rachel weeping for her children 

    and refusing to be comforted, 

    because they are no more.” 

I can’t help but think of the mothers in Israel and Gaza and Ukraine and Russia, who have lost their children to war this year. I think of the mothers in America who have lost their children to school shootings or drug overdoses. Human inhumanity to humans colors Christmas this year. Auden’s rewrites Rachel’s song for his time: 

On the Left are grinning dogs, peering down into a solitude 

too deep to fill with roses. 

On the Right are sensible sheep, gazing up at a pride where 

no dream can grow. 

Somewhere in these unending wastes of delirium is a lost child, 

speaking of Long Ago in the language of wounds. 

To-morrow, perhaps, he will come to himself in Heaven. 

But here Grief turns her silence, neither in this direction, nor

in that, nor for any reason.  

And her coldness now is on the earth forever. 

 

Auden’s song sounds bleak. What a Grinch! He definitely is not in the Christmas spirit! We prefer Dolly Parton or Mariah Carey singing our favorites. At church we like to sing Joy to the World or Silent Night, where all is calm and all is bright. We like packaged crèches with posed characters who do not weep ... except in joy.  

All those lovely traditions have their place at Christmas. I love them too. Christmas is a welcome respite from real life, if only for a day. We all need some light in the darkness. But it is also important to acknowledge the shadow side of Christmas. That is why so many churches have “Blue Christmas” services. This Christmas let us take time to listen to Rachel, and all the Rachels who lament this Christmas.