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Welcome back to Advent of Carols from VerseNotes. I’m Jerry Towler, and today we’re looking at “What Child Is This?”—a hymn that opens with a question so obvious you kind of wonder how they made a whole song out of it.
If you want to listen to the song before we dive in, you’ll find some links in the show notes.
I mentioned the question, and this hymn helpfully answers its own question. We previously looked at a song that didn’t answer it—Mary, Did You Know?—and in that episode we decided definitively: yes, Mary did know.
But here, we don’t have to wonder. This song is performing theology by interrogation, and it’s answering its own questions.
Before we really dive into the lyrics, I want to note that the music for this hymn is definitely Greensleeves. Sometimes that’s a little bit surprising, at least to me, because I think of Greensleeves as being this fast, high-energy, lightweight, playful song.
But very often, for this carol, it’s slowed down; it’s put into a minor key; it becomes this heavy, aching, longing, very Advent-feeling song. Which is an interesting contrast, because your brain is thinking Greensleeves, but your heart is feeling Advent.
Also, before we get started, I want to note that the Trans-Siberian Orchestra does a beautiful version of this song where they change the lyrics so that they’re about Joseph wondering about the child: Can he really be who everyone says he is? Joseph sings in wonder at a child that he can’t yet comprehend.
But the real version, like I said, answers all of its own questions.
Verse one, for example, asks the question,
What child is this who, laid to rest,
On Mary’s lap is sleeping?
And half a stanza later, it answers the question:
This, this is Christ the King.
Verse two asks:
Why lies He in such mean estate
Why is He in this poor manger instead of coming on clouds of glory or seated on a golden throne.
And then it answers itself: because He came for sinners. He came “for me, for you.”
This song doesn’t allow debate the way Mary, Did You Know? We don’t have to wonder what the answer to the question is. The song just tells us every time.
In fact, this song really opens up the entire arc of salvation. The Word made flesh starts with the incarnation. We see the birth—the shepherds, the angels, the manger, the ox, the donkeys—all the way forward to the Passion, the cross:
Nails, spear shall pierce him through.
And then what should we do in response?
Hail, hail, bring him incense, gold, and myrrh.
And then, at the climax of the song:
Let loving hearts enthrone him.
This hymn moves from Bethlehem to Calvary to your heart right now, today.
It’s the gospel wrapped up in a carol, like so many of these Advent hymns have been.
Shepherds and kings come to worship the child, and you are invited.
Scripturally, this song sits right on top of Luke 2, just like so many other Advent songs we’ve looked at. And it feels a lot like Isaiah 9:6 as well:
To us a child is born,
To us a son is given, And His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God.
I’ve seen sources that list tons and tons of other scriptural references for this hymn, not just these two obvious ones. Some of those sources include some weird stuff like, for example, Revelation 19:16—that’s the famous Jesus-on-a-white-horse image—because that’s one place that you see the phrase King of Kings applied to Jesus.
I don’t think the author of this hymn really had this in mind when he wrote it, I guess that stretch is available if you want it.
Speaking of the author, this story is amazing.
I love learning all of these great stories of how these hymns were written. They’re so crazy.
This hymn was written in 1865 by a man named William Chatterton Dix, who, at the time, was working for a maritime insurance company. He wasn’t a musician or a composer, and he was only 28 years old.
That year, he had contracted a sudden illness and very nearly died. As a consequence, he fell into this severe depression. And while he was bedridden, recuperating from this illness, he read the Bible straight through, Genesis to Revelation.
As he did it, he wrote a number of hymns. You’ve never heard of any of them, and neither have I—except for this one.
But in this one, we get one of the richest Christological carols ever written.
Six years later, in 1871, it was published in an influential collection called Christmas Carols New and Old. It was put right alongside The First Noel, God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, and The Holly and the Ivy, which I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of. So this dude, 28 years old, gives us this incredible enduring hymn.
That 1871 collection, by the way, is where the lyrics were set to Greensleeves for the first time.
I was amused in my research to discover that Shakespeare apparently makes fun of using Greensleeves for sacred music. In The Merry Wives of Windsor, he jokes that a particular person’s words and actions go together about as well as the Hundredth Psalm and the tune of Greensleeves.
So jokes about this song are almost five hundred years old.
Let’s get back to the words.
The lyrics really hinge on this phrase:
The silent Word is pleading.
This is about the eternal word from John 1:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
And the eternal Word becomes a speechless infant. And yet, this is how Jesus is interceding for us—not with speech, but with presence.
The manger and the cross live in the same stanza because they live in the same mission. He comes to earth so that He can take us with Him as He goes to heaven.
The humility of this birth—”why lies He in such mean estate?”—is not an accident. It’s a strategy.
It brings us from the theology of verse two to the invitation in verse three:
Come, peasant king, to own him.
No one is too high or too low. Jesus is for all.
The magi bring these gifts—the gold, the frankincense, and the myrrh—but the song tells us that’s not the real gift.
The gift is:
Let loving hearts enthrone him.
This is Advent. This is what we really want: the King of Kings arrives, and we prepare him room in our hearts, because he prepares us room in His home.
So when the hymn asks, “What child is this?” it’s not uncertainty about who this guy is. It’s awe that this child is Christ the king—the Word made flesh, the one who came for sinners, for me, for you, and the one worthy of enthronement in every loving heart.
Joy, joy, for Christ is born.
And that’s why we sing.
Thanks for joining me today for Advent of Carols. If you’d like to help make more projects like this possible, check out VerseNotes Commons at: versenotes.org/commons.
We’ll be back tomorrow with another Carol of Christmas.
If you’ve got thoughts about today’s carol, I’d love to hear them. You can always reach me at [email protected].
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