25 Days of Advent: Once In Royal David's City

Once In Royal David's City

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 mean, and lowly,
Lived on earth our Savior holy.

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 dear and gentle
Is our Lord in heaven above,
And He leads His children on
To the place where He is 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;
Where like stars His children crowned
All in white shall wait around.

This is another song which I was not previously very familiar with, but grew to love from the festive version on the aforementioned Sufjan Christmas album. Like "Away in a Manger," it was originally written for children. And like many things meant for children, it might really mean more to us grown-ups.

Take the third verse. I love the lines "Tears and smiles like us He knew/And he feeleth for our sadness/and he shareth in our gladness." Part of the miracle of Jesus being fully God and fully man was exactly this. He knew sadness and joy, first as a little child and then, like us, more fully and more deeply as an adult. He wept at the death of his friend. He feasted and celebrated at the wedding banquet. He is not dispassionate or incapable of understanding our life here on Earth, because he too lived it. He became like us, even humbling himself so far as to be born a helpless baby. C.S. Lewis put it like this:

The Eternal Being, who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man but before that a baby, and before that a fetus inside a woman's body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (John 1:14)

He too shared in their humanity, so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death... For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way. (Hebrews 2:14,17)

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:14-16)