Has the carol got it wrong?

by Jonathan Krause

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This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger (Luke 2:12).

Read Luke 2:1–14

I think the Christmas carol might have it wrong. It’s a shame, because it’s one of the most popular carols. A staple at Carols by Candlelight. You’ll probably sing it tonight.

I’m talking about ‘Away in a manger’, verse two: ‘But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.’

How do babies tell you what they need? The primary way is by crying. When they’re hungry. Uncomfortable. Have a smelly green poo that needs attention.

You might think I’m being disrespectful, talking about such ‘human’ stuff like this as I talk about Jesus … yet we know Jesus was fully human. Flesh and blood. Just like you and me.

Sometimes I fear we sanitise Jesus. Polish up the human edges so that there’s always a saintly glow around him. Seek to ‘protect’ him from having to confront the embarrassing everyday stuff we regular humans do. Shrink his humanness to a size that makes sense to us.

Tonight, on Christmas Eve, we’ll sing beautiful carols and be filled with the great joy that the good news of Jesus’ birth brings, just as the angel proclaimed. We’ll look heavenward. That’s as it should be.

Yet, at the same time, let’s not trap Jesus in a pretty-wrapped box that will fit neatly under our tinsel-tangled Christmas tree.

Just as God’s glory is beyond anything we can imagine, so is Jesus’ humanness.

This humanness is how we can trust that Jesus knows what we face. Our crises of confidence. Our battles with insecurity. Our despair at how we look, or how we age, or how often we fail to do what we know we should try to do (see Paul …).

Next time you sing ‘Away in a manger’, when you get to the last line of the second verse, try singing these words: ‘And little Lord Jesus, hungry howling he makes.’

As you do, I pray the humanness of Jesus, tiny and vulnerable in the care of a young mum and her tradie husband in a grotty cattle shed, will be a real hands-on comfort to you in all your humanness.

Jesus, my prayer today is the carol’s third verse: be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask thee to stay, close by me forever, and love me, I pray. Amen.

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