This Sunday, December 20, the fourth advent candle will be lit. It is visibly obvious that Christmas, when tie white candle will be lit, is very near. Some churches will have Christmas Eve services and light the final candle then. Others will have services that start at midnight on December 25 and light the candle then. Traditions and customs are just that, traditions and customs. The important thing is not to worship the tradition but to meditate on the reason of the custom.
The Christmas hymn I’m presenting today has become one of my favorites. I recall “discovering” it for myself when I first encountered it as a teenager in my own church’s hymnal which was published in 1956. Not until the last few years have I looked more closely at the text and tune. As a result of that investigation it has come to be one of my favorites.
The text, as penned by the female author, originally consisted of six verses. One of the verses, however, was viewed as wandering from the core value of the other five verses and has, since it’s first publishing, been reproduced in only one hymnal. Though composed in 1848, not until the last quarter century has this carol found popular acceptance in a broad array of denominational hymnary.
Following are the five verses of text that are available for publication.
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 shelter was a stable,
and his cradle was a stall:
with the poor, and meek, and lowly
lived on earth our Savior holy.
Jesus 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 feels for all our sadness,
and he shares in all our gladness.
And our eyes at last shall see him,
through his own redeeming love,
for that child, so dear and gentle,
is our Lord in heaven above:
and he leads his children on
to the place where he has gone.
Not in that poor lowly stable
with the oxen standing by
we shall see him, but in heaven,
set at God’s right hand on high;
there his children gather round,
bright like stars, with glory crowned.
Though five verses exist for publication, most hymnals present only four verses; an editorial decision to save space as shown below.
Now, a closer look at the text. The meter for the first four lines is 8.7.8.7. For three of the verses the meter ends with two lines of seven syllables each; 7.7. However, for the second and third verses that pattern is broken with the addition of one syllable for each line making the meter conclude as 8.8.
On closer examination of the text we may see the reason for this oddity. Cecil Frances Alexander (nee Humphrey) wrote the text to assist in explaining portions of the Apostle’s Creed. It was one of thirteen poems wholly dedicated for instruction with respect to that Creed. In each she uses some scriptural allusions. In this text those references come from a few verses in the Gospel of Luke and one in John 14 (verse four of the text). Perhaps she found it too difficult to find single-syllable words that would rhyme and, at the same time, provide adequate meaning.
Continued observation will also reveal that the author flips between the historical information to making application for “today” even while leading to the fifth verse that looks forward to where “there his children gather round, bright like stars, with glory crowned.”
This hymn also meets the standards for being a “gospel” song because, indeed, it references the life and saving work of Jesus the Savior. This is The Gospel, a witness of the Life of Christ and not a genré or stylistic trend.
The verse commonly dropped from use is the original third stanza. That text is as follows.
And through all His wondrous childhood
he would honor and obey,
love and watch the lowly maiden
in whose gentle arms he lay:
Christian children all must be
mild, obedient, good as he.
Depending on your viewpoint, you may see why it is omitted; it extols mildness and quiet obedience in children – qualities which are not emphasized today. In our street language of today we may say: “What’s up with that?” It begs the question regarding discipline and the psyche of the child.
The entire text divides the original six stanzas into three pairs. The first pair tells what happened. The second pair, though often altered or deleted, describes one perspective on the undocumented years of Jesus’ life, when He was a child before the onset of His earthly ministry. This theme was appropriate to the original audience for this hymn – children. The third pair looks forward to Jesus’ Second Coming, and the contrast it will present to the humble scene presented in stanzas 1 and 2.
The tune, IRBY, was composed for this text in 1849 by Henry Gauntlett and was first published in 1850 as a melody with keyboard accompaniment. The tune name comes from a village in Lincolnshire, England. Gauntlett created a four-part setting for the 1868 Appendix of Hymns Ancient and Modern. Arthur Mann composed a four-part setting for the tune while he was organist at King’s College, Cambridge. Mann’s setting is the one commonly used.
Byron Songer
December 18, 2015
