A deceptive carol
There's only one thing worse than choosing music for your church, and that's not choosing music for your church. I was reminded about this again when I went visiting and ended up singing one of my all-time least-favourite Christmas carols, “Away in a Manger”.
Whoever composed this sickly sweet bowl of mush needs to dose themselves with a few grumpy pills before they have another go. Actually, the authors are probably composing in heaven these days, but that makes the problem all the more significant as we will be singing their stuff for all eternity there.
But that's the least of my complaints. The real problem is that the anonymously composed lyrics are docetic (from the Greek dokew, meaning “I seem”). (By the way, the rumour that it was composed by Martin Luther is an unwarranted slur on that great man.) That is, the lyrics are informed by the heresy that says God did not become a man, but only appeared to become a man. He seemed to be a man, but he was fooling us.
Consider:
The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes,
but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.
What the?? “No crying he makes”!? No baby I've ever known has ever woken up cold, hungry, and surrounded by scary animals with a bunch of strange shepherds peering in, and not cried. Well, okay, I haven't known that many babies in those exact circumstances, but I'm guessing, contrary to the carol-writer, that any normal baby would be raising at least a little complaint about the situation.
And there are other de-humanizing aspects of this vision of Jesus as well. The air of unreality permeates, as the “stars in the bright sky look down”, which causes us to wonder whether the hay in the manger is glaring back up. Then we end up addressing the one in the manger with these words—
I love thee Lord Jesus, look down from the sky,
and stay by my cradle, until morning is nigh.
—which leave us with the distinctly spooky impression of a baby in two places at once (orbiting the earth and whizzing through the night sky at thousands of kilometres an hour, and yet oddly right next to us) with no explanation that can be tallied with the normal nature of human bodies. (Actually there was a rather unsettling scene at the end of Stanley Kubrick's movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey which involved a baby floating across the galaxy and weirding out a distressed astronaut, but it's unlikely the 19th-century writer of these lyrics had that in mind.)
Jesus, who was truly God, became a man and lived among us full of grace and truth. He was born to a human mother by normal means. As a baby, he drank milk, cried, soiled his nappy, and was present in only one place at the one time. Any popular carol that hints otherwise should be left to decompose in some forgotten manger or compost heap.
The reality is that the Lord Jesus, though he was as rich as the Lord of the Universe can be, for our sake, became poor—and his poverty came in that he entered the world as a real, live human being who came to die on the cross for our sins. So if you're choosing carols, why not substitute this one by Frank Houghton, which is far better in every respect and considerably more truthful:
(The tune, sung with French words, can be heard here. A cheesier but clearer version can be found here):
Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,
All for love's sake becamest poor;
Thrones for a manger didst surrender,
Sapphire-paved courts for stable floor.
Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,
All for love's sake becamest poor.Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love's sake becamest man;
Stooping so low, but sinners raising
Heavenwards by thine eternal plan.
Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love's sake becamest man.Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Saviour and King, we worship thee.
Emmanuel, within us dwelling,
Make us what thou wouldst have us be.
Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Saviour and King, we worship thee.(Frank Houghton, 1894-1972)