Artists and movie makers and greeting card makers have created many pictures of Mary and Joseph with the baby. These scenes are beautiful and sentimental, and powerful in the way they have stuck in our minds. In contrast to those imaginary depictions, the real scene as described in the Bible is amazingly sparse in details. The focus in scripture is on what happened rather the visual sight. And so, in many ways, the best Christmas carols are those which give only meager attention to how it all looked, and just focus on the mystery, the marvel, the majesty of the incarnation when the Son of God took on a true human body and sinless human nature in order to carry our sins to the cross.
One of the most simple carols, then, is “Gentle Mary Laid Her Child.” It was written in 1919 by Joseph Simpson Cook (1859-1933). Born in Durham County, England, he trained for Methodist ministry in Montreal’s Wesleyan Theological College and McGill University before serving pastorates in quite a large number of churches, usually for just two to three years in each church. He later transferred to the United Church of Canada. He contributed articles and verses to many church-connected magazines. His best-known hymn, “Gentle Mary Laid Her Child Lowly in a Manger” won first prize in a contest of the Methodist weekly “Christian Guardian.”