Every year at the church I work at, the Sunday after Christmas (or, in the case of this year, on Christmas) is a service of lessons and carols. This year I was assigned “Once In Royal David’s City”. The following is the reflection I offered.

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.

Once In Royal David’s City was originally published in 1848 and was specifically written to be a song for children, particularly to teach them about obedience. One of the verses that we no longer sing says:

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 should be,
Mild, obedient, good as He.

It’s a nice sentiment. But Jesus wasn’t mild and obedient. He ran away from his parents as a child, he turned over the tables in the Temple as an adult, he was arrested and crucified as an insurrectionist against Rome. This is not the tale we tell in our Christmas carols.

We paint pictures of a picturesque Bethlehem, a quiet manger, a silent baby. But the reality was a lot more complicated. Jesus was born to refugee parents in the occupied Roman Empire. His birth was felt to be a threat to established order, a threat to the King. In “The Song of the Magi” by Anais Mitchell she sings:

“A child is born
born in Bethlehem
born in a cattle pen
a child is born on the killing floor
and still he no crying makes
still as the air is he
lying so prayerfully there
waiting for the war
welcome home, my child
your home is a checkpoint now
your home is a border town
welcome to the brawl
And life ain’t fair, my child
put your hands in the air, my child
slowly now, single file, now
up against the wall”

What a different picture that paints! And yet it is much closer to the truth of Jesus’ birth. We cannot divorce our stories of Jesus from the reality of the time in which they were lived.

Some might say that knowing this history takes away from the wonder and peace of the Christmas season, but I think knowing this history deepens our understanding of what it means for God to enter into the mess of human existence. Jesus wasn’t born to people with wealth and power, he was born to the poor and that, to much of the world, is good news.

And in this radical incarnation we understand a calling not to be obedient and mild but to an upheaval of the established order. We sing the Magnificat with Mary:

‘My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
for God has looked with favour on the lowliness of God’s servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is God’s name.
God’s mercy is for those who fear God
from generation to generation.
God has shown strength with God’s arm;
God has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
God has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.
God has helped God’s servant Israel,
in remembrance of God’s mercy,
according to the promise God made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’

Once in royal David’s city was born a child who called us to a restructuring of values, a reordering of how we understand power. This baby, in all his vulnerability, brings us to understand how God cares for the vulnerable. And teaches us, in turn, what we are called to do: Speak truth to power, over turn the tables of those who put profit before people, and be in the mess with people wherever there is injustice. This is the message of Christmas: God with us. God in us. Bringing the good news of a new hope to all who have felt forgotten.

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