“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.

Those words open the traditional service of A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols held every Christmas Eve at King’s College, Cambridge, in England. The voices of the boy choristers are joined by the choir of men and the combined sound resonates within the famed King’s College Chapel, one of the most famous buildings in the history of the Christian church.

The sounds of the choristers and choir as they sing within those soaring vaults are astoundingly beautiful, but the words of that opening carol are even more beautiful. All of history is divided into what came before and after the birth of that little child in royal David’s city, Bethlehem.

The words to that carol can be traced back to a poem written by Cecil Frances Alexander in 1845. A year later, her poem was set to the music we know today. Alexander wrote the poem as a piece within her cycle on the Apostles’ Creed written for young children and, like so many texts written for children, the carol is cherished by Christians of all ages.

The text of the creed simply reminds us that Jesus Christ was “conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary.” Those words can be said in less than five seconds, but they resound through the centuries, encapsulating truths essential to the Christian faith and thus to the gospel itself.

The simplicity of the story of Christ’s birth, found in both Matthew and Luke, has invited elaboration and imagination. Nevertheless, the power of the story is in its utter simplicity and humility. The Holy Spirit conceived the baby Jesus within Mary’s womb and a peasant girl became the mother of our Savior. The humbleness of His birth is noted and celebrated in the portrait of the “lowly cattle shed” and the “manger for his bed.” As John reminds us, even as Jesus was born to save us from our sins, “the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him” (John 1:10).

The humble circumstances of Christ’s birth, right down to the cattle shed and the manger, are contrasted with the place of Jesus’s birth—royal David’s city. Kings are not shy about their power and the grandeur of their reigns. King’s College Chapel was built by several English kings in the period 1446–1515, and much of the work can be traced to the patronage of King Henry VII and his son, King Henry VIII. It goes without saying that the Tudor monarchs saw such achievements as testimony to their own greatness and the lasting legacy of their royal reigns. They loved showing their glory. Among kings, none can equal Israel’s great monarch, King David. Bethlehem is the city of David and symbolic of David’s royal line. God promised Israel a coming Messiah who would restore David’s throne and reign in glory.

Christmas reminds us of the incongruous portrait of that night in Bethlehem, David’s city, when that Messiah was born, absolutely without earthly glory. But never forget that there was supernatural glory surrounding the birth of Christ. There was no royal court, no throne, no court heralds. But there was a magnificent heavenly host of angels declaring: “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). There was no royal bed chamber, but there was “a manger for his bed.”

That same cherished Christmas carol continues:

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.

This is the glory of Christmas, and we must never miss it. In perfect obedience to the Father, the very Son of God came and assumed true humanity. As John tells us, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The crucial words of that second stanza of the carol affirm the glorious truth of Christmas that “With the poor and mean and lowly, lived on earth our Savior holy.”

This is the saving power and the eternal glory of the Christmas message—that in the manger slept our Savior, who is Christ the Lord. He came to save sinners and will come again to reign in glory. This is the glorious truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the glory of our joy and worship at Christmas. To the glory of Christ, may we never cease to look with wonder at that lowly stable in royal David’s city. With gospel confidence we celebrate. In the love of Christ, we greet this day with unbounded joy. Merry Christmas.