Imagining the Childhood of the Baby Born in Bethlehem
English hymnwriter Cecil Frances Humphreys Alexander wrote the Christmas carol “Once in Royal David’s City” and published it in 1848 in Hymns for Little Children.
In 1918 King’s College Chapel Choir at Cambridge University began a special Christmas Eve service called “A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols.” It is a program of Bible readings and Christmas carols. In 1928 it was broadcast for the first time on radio. These broadcasts continue as they have every year since except for 1930.
The first song is always “Once in Royal David’s City” with the first verse sung as a solo by a boy the choirmaster has chosen just before the program begins.
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 Saviour holy.
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.
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;
When like stars His children rise
Singing praises in the skies.
In 2021 the King’s College Cambridge website described the ninth reading at this annual service this way:
The ninth reading at our service concludes with this great declaration, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” The whole service leads us towards this great sentence: a sentence that invites us to remember that the one who created us does not stand aloof from our suffering, but shares it with us and somehow transforms it into peace of heart and mind, and an attitude of kindness towards others.*
Thank you for sharing the transforming message of God the Creator and Jesus the Redeemer with your children.
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through Him,
and apart from HimÂ
not even one thing came into being that has come into being.
In Him was life, and the life was the Light of mankind.
John 1:1-4