Hang Your Harp on the Willows

Psalm 137:2

On the willows there we hung up our lyres.

Imagine being a young adult, witnessing atrocities of a waring nation decimating your family, being led away from your homeland in chains, arriving in a foreign country as a slave, and being required to sing. But you’re not being asked to sing any old song but songs of deliverance and hope, so your captors could make fun of you. Sounds like a hopeless picture. In fact, if there were a time I would desire not to sing it would be in that time. Hope surely would seem dead.

It is in the darkest times that hope is needed most. When things are going well, and all of the chips are falling into place we don’t need hope. Hope doesn’t matter; circumstances tell us that what we want and what is happening match. It’s when everything seems bleak, when what we desire is very, very far from what is happening that hope matters most.

This week of advent is the week of hope. Looking back at the three hundred years of silent prophets we see that the wick of hope hardly seemed to have a smoking ember. Why sing about the Grand Fixer who had been promised? If there ever was a time to hang up your harps and cease singing a song of hope it was then. But that’s when Jesus came.

Singing should not be circumstantial. We should be singing songs of praise to God in the darkest of times. Through the music of hope our hope doesn’t just smolder but lights a fire within us and the light which fades everywhere else shines from within. Are you tempted to quiet the song? Don’t do it! Grab your harp; draw your hands across the strings and lift your voice to sing a song of hope.

Prayer for today:

Jesus, you came when things looked hopeless and brought the light of your grace to the world shining from a manger. Help me to remember to sing the songs of hope even when things are difficult. This is the time I must sing. Amen.

Pastor Wes