One Carol in Six Days
Over this advent season, for the six days leading up to Christmas, we take a closer look at the Christmas carol, "Once in Royal David's City."
The author is the well-known hymn-writer Cecil Frances Alexander who penned All Things Bright and Beautiful, There is a Green Hill far Away, and this beautiful carol. Any one of these three hymns would have secured her memory in history.
Inspired to make high doctrine simple for children, Once in Royal David's City was published in "Hymns for Little Children" which appeared in 1848. So we are singing a carol written over 170 years ago.
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| Cecil Frances Alexander |
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.
Royal David's City?
Cecil is thinking of Bethlehem, the place where Jesse and his sons lived (1 Samuel 16). When the prophet Samuel came by to annoint the next king of Israel, David was the last son anyone imagined would be God's choice.
He was the youngest and a "mere" out-in-the-fields shepherd.
And yet this is so often God's way, is it not? He chooses the things - and the people - and the methods - the world despises. Let's never write anyone off. Jesus himself would one day be called the stone which the builders rejected (Matthew 21:42).
As great a king David was, he was only the forerunner of God's True King who's kingdom would never end, the King who would one day be born in David's hometown, Bethlehem.
From Nazareth to Bethlehem
Joseph and Mary were obliged by law to make the trip to Bethlehem to get their names into a census the Roman Empire was conducting. It was not the best time to travel, for Mary was expecting a child. Not Joseph's child, but the divine Son of God.
How they made that trip no-one knows. Christmas cards place Mary on a donkey and for sure that could have been the mode of transport.
The Scriptures do not dwell on details that make it into gossip columns, so all we know is that when they arrived they took up residence in a less-than suitable place of abode. Not surprising since the town would have been packed out with other census goers.
The mere fact that Mary and Joseph were obeying the law of the land speaks to their run-of-the-mill godliness and integrity. Does God ever entrust mighty works to those who do not prove themselves in smaller duties? I think not.
"Placed him in a manger"
We read that after Jesus was born, Mary wrapped him in cloths and "placed him in a manger."
No mother would by choice deposit their precious newborn in the dirty trough of an animal. Instead mothers and fathers spend good money to make their child as comfortable as possible - especially if it is their first.
What did Mary think of this arrangement, we wonder? Did she tick Joseph off for not finding better habitat? Did she complain to God that he had not ordained more suitable accommodation? In her disappointment did she doubt - for a moment - the whole account Gabriel had given, wondering how the God of heaven could possibly allow the the King of heaven to be born in a stable? It would be strange if Mary did not have questions and doubts like these.
If only she knew
If only Mary knew that the world her Son came to save was poor and being born among the animals would fit him to be the ideal Saviour of that world.
We live in a radically rich-poor world divide. 1% of the world's population hold 45% of its wealth, 10% own 82% of it. Many of the world's huddled masses are materially poor. Around 10% live in extreme material poverty. Covid has driven another 100 million people in the same direction.
True poverty, of course, has nothing to do with possessions or wealth. True poverty is a spiritual matter. And the whole wide world without Jesus Christ is bankrupt, lacking a Saviour who can provide them with the riches of God's mercy and lacking purpose in life.
When Mary laid her precious child into that animal trough, she was unwittingly identifying her child with the impoverished world He came to save.
He became poor not only to identify with the poor but to make them rich.
“For
you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich,
yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might
become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9)
A Prayer for the Day
O Lord God, your ways are higher than our ways, just as your thoughts are higher than ours. Our ways would have placed the Messiah in a golden crib, guarded by Roman soldiers and sited in a palace.
But then, O Lord, few could have identified with him. Instead you ordained that he would be born of an ordinary nobody, Mary, in backwater Bethlehem, and most especially in a stall belonging to animals.
We thank you for this strange detail of the story and worship you because in all of our lostness and poverty we have someone who can both empathise with us and save us.
We thank you for your Son and we thankyou for the manger.
In the Name of Jesus
Amen
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