December 29 - Once in Royal David's City

If you have ever attended a Lessons and Carols service (like the one we had at GFBC on December 21), you heard this hymn begin the service. Cecil Francis Alexander wrote it and included it in her collection, Hymns for Little Children in 1848. The collection was based on the words of the Apostle's Creed and was meant to help form children in the faith. "Once in Royal" is a meditation on the line from the Creed, "Born of a Virgin Mary." The simplicity of the text, which is beautifully accented by the tune, is a beautiful expression of the way in which God chose to enter the world: as a poor and helpless baby. 

On Christmas Eve, we told the story of the real Nativity, one that was not sterile and domesticated, but messy, wild, and demanding. Alexander captures that reality by emphasizing the "lowly cattle shed," the manger, the oxen, the poverty of the scene. We often try to clean up the way that God entered the world and make it about us, make it look like us. But God did not come to dwell with the comfortable, but with the outcasts, so that through his sorrows we might be saved.  

What can we do this Christmas to live in to the reality of the Nativity? Incarnation is not just doctrine, it is also a practice. How can you personally more fully embrace the real Nativity this year? How can you practice Incarnation in the way that Jesus was made incarnate? How could our church, as the body of Christ, enter the world in the way that Jesus did? Perhaps we can start to listen to the people around us whose experiences more closely match those of our Savior while he walked the earth. The poor. The refugees. The weak and helpless. Perhaps we can relearn what it means to have faith like a child. Jesus often pointed to children as examples of the type of faith he wanted for his followers. "The kingdom of God is for such as these." If we want to be a part of the kingdom Jesus came to bring this Christmas, we have to live in solidarity with the poor, to know their tears and smiles, just like Christ did. We have to listen to God speaking to us through the least among us, and allow that voice to lead us on "to the place where he has gone." 

You are encouraged to enter into a time of silent confession and meditation followed by the closing prayer.

Closing Prayer

God of the little, weak, and helpless: give us new vision this Christmas. Help us to see the reality of your nativity more clearly, and to open our ears, our minds, and our hearts to your voice among the poor around us. Lead us on, Lord Jesus. Amen.

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 gather 'round.

Rev. Stephen Stacks