December 16. “Once in Royal David’s City” - Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895)
Once in royal David’s city Stood a lowly cattle shed, Where a mother laid her baby, In a manger for His bed. Mary was that mother mild, Jesus Christ her little child. He came down to earth from heaven Who is God and Lord of all, And His s...helter was a stable, And His cradle was a stall. With the poor, and mean, and lowly Lived on earth, our Savior holy. And through all His wondrous childhood He would honor and obey, Love, and watch the lowly mother In whose gentle arms He lay. Christian children all must be Mild, obedient, good as He. For He is our childhood’s pattern: Day by day like us He grew; He was little, weak, and helpless; Tears and smiles like us He knew; And He feeleth for our sadness, And He shareth in our gladness. And our eyes at last shall see Him, Through His own redeeming love; For that child so ear and gentle Is our Lord in heav’n above; And He leads His children on To the place where He is gone. Not in that poor lowly stable, With the oxen standing round, We shall see Him, but in heaven, Set at God’s right hand on high, When like stars, His children crowned, All in white shall wait around. Cecil Alexander wrote a series of hymns to teach children about the Apostles’ Creed. “All Things Bright and Beautiful” illustrated the first phrase of the Creed, about God the Father, “maker of heaven and earth.” This hymn teaches about the phrase “conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary.” Later, “There Is a Green Hill Far Away” was written for “suffered under Pontius Pilate…” Alexander had a knack for taking major biblical themes and boiling them down into four or six easy-to-understand lines. She also had a heart for the “poor, and mean, and lowly.” She regularly visited the sick in the parish where her husband was pastor. She especially tended to the children.
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Jesus our brother, strong and good, Was humbly born in a stable rude; And the friendly beasts around Him stood, Jesus our brother, strong and good. “I,” said the donkey, shaggy and brown, “I carried His mother up hill and down; I carried her safely to Bethlehem town,... I,” said the donkey, shaggy and brown. “I,” said the cow, all white and red, “I gave Him my manger for His bed; I gave Him my hay to pillow His head, I,” said the cow, all white and rd. “I,” said the sheep with the curly horn, “I gave Him my wool for His blanket warm. He word my coat on Christmas morn, I,” said the sheep with the curly horn. “I,” said the dove from rafters high, “I cooed Him to sleep so He would not cry, We cooed Him to sleep, my mate and I; I,” said the dove from rafters high. And every beast, by some good spell, In the stable dark was glad to tell, Of the gift He gave Emmanuel, The gift He gave Emmanuel. This Children’s Carol may go back as far as the 12th century. It is a meditation on the animals that may have been present at Jesus’ birth. What would each of them have given as a birthday gift to the Christ child? We don’t know for sure that Joseph and Mary traveled on a donkey, but they might have. The Bible doesn’t say anything about cattle, though Jesus was laid in a manger, which was a feed bin for cattle. The shepherds were tending sheep, but did they bring them to see Jesus? Were there doves in the rafters? We don’t know. But there is a biblical tradition of animals serving God. A donkey challenged Balaam to obey God, and ravens fed Elijah in the wild. A great fish swallowed Jonah whole and delivered him back to shore. The psalms speak freely of all creation joining in the praise of God, and Romans says that all things await their final redemption. The future of donkeys, cattle, sheep, and doves is somehow wrapped up with ours, and so they would have good reason to honor the Messiah’s birth. God rest ye merry, gentlemen, let nothing you dismay, For Jesus Christ our Savior Was born upon this day, To save us all from Satan’s power When we were gone astray. Refrain: O tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy; O tidings of comfort and joy! In Bethlehem in Jewry This blessed babe was born, And laid within a manager Upon this blessed morn: The which His mother Mary Did nothing take in scorn. Refrain. From God our heavenly Father A blessed angel came, And unto certain shepherds Brought tidings of the same, How that in Bethlehem was born The Son of God by name. Refrain. The shepherds at those tidings Rejoiced much in mind, And left their flocks afeeding In tempest, storm, and wind, And went to Bethlehem straightway, The blessed babe to find. Refrain. Now to the Lord sing praises, All you within this place, And with true love and brotherhood Each other now embrace; This holy tide of Christmas All other doth deface. Refrain. This Carol was first published in 1827, but even then it was introduced as “an ancient carol, sung in the streets of London.” In fact, old London had municipal watchmen who were licensed to perform certain tasks, including the singing of Christmas carols. This was one of their songs. In A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Ebenezer Scrooge hears this song sung joyously in the street and tells the singer he’ll hit him with a ruler unless he stops singing. Of course that was not the intended response to this carol. The point is that joy reigns on Christmas Day because of God’s great gift of His Son, Jesus Christ. We can “rest merry” in the knowledge that Christ has paid our penalty for going astray and has set us free from the power of evil. |
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