Once in Royal David’s City
Good Morning and Merry Christmas!
Today I would like to share the words of one of my favorite Christmas carols, “Once in Royal David’s City,” written by Cecil Frances Humphreys Alexander and published in Hymns for Little Children in 1848.
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.
And He went down with them and came to Nazareth,
and He continued in subjection to them;
and His mother treasured all these things in her heart.
And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature,
and in favor with God and men.
Luke 2:51-52, NASB