Christmas is for children, isn’t it? It’s not just the fading myth of Santa and his reindeer, along with the trees and sparkling lights. It’s the glow in the eyes and hearts of little ones in the beauty of family and church celebrations, from caroling to shut-ins to playing the part of sheep or angels in the nativity play. A number of our beloved hymns were written especially for children. Think of Cecil Frances Alexander’s “Once in Royal David’s City” and “There Was a Green Hill Far Away.” This wife of an Irish Anglian bishop wrote hymns that enable children to visualize key biblical events in the life of Christ, and to do so with significant theological depth appropriate to the understanding level of little ones.
Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) wrote “O Little Town of Bethlehem” for children in 1868 for their annual Christmas Sunday School celebration at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. Brooks, who won the hearts of children where he pastored, is remembered as “the children’s Bishop.” He was a giant of a man, standing 6-feet 8-inches in height. But he also had a big heart that endeared him to people of all ages. Though he never married, it is reported that he kept toys in his study in Boston for the many children who visited him there. It was not unusual for parishioners to find their beloved bishop sitting on the floor playing a game with a group of little ones!
A few years after graduating from Harvard and the Virginia Theological Seminary, he was appointed in 1862 as rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Philadelphia, where he served for seven years. In 1869, he became rector of Boston’s famous Trinity Church and oversaw the construction of the magnificent building that stands there today on Copley Square. There he remained until his death unexpectedly in 1893 at the relatively young age of 58. Fifteen months before his death, he was appointed Bishop of Massachusetts. It was a child who put his death in a beautiful light. When told by her mother that Bishop Brooks had gone to heaven, she simply said, “Oh Mama, how happy the angels will be.” He is remembered by preachers for his famous lectures on preaching delivered at Yale (still in print) in 1877 in which he famously defined preaching as “truth delivered through personality.” He introduced Helen Keller to Christianity and to Ann Sullivan, who helped her deal with her blindness and deafness. During his life, he became one of the most famous clergymen of his day.
It was while serving at the church in Philadelphia that Brooks wrote “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” He was privileged to visit “The Holy Land” in 1865 at the end of a year’s vacation traveling across Europe, and while there traveled on horseback from Jerusalem to Bethlehem on Christmas Eve. Here is how described it. “Before dark we rode out of town to the field where they say the shepherds saw the star. It is a fenced piece of ground with a cave in it, in which, strangely enough, they put the shepherds. . . . Somewhere in those fields we rode through, the shepherds must have been. As we passed, the shepherds were still ‘keeping watch over their flocks,’ or leading them home to fold.” He participated in the Christmas Eve service in Constantine’s ancient basilica (326 A.D.) built over the traditional site of the Nativity, a cave below and to the side of the main altar, The service lasted from 10 P.M. to 3 A.M.!
Something about the beauty and simplicity of that visit stayed with Phillips Brooks when he returned to Philadelphia. Several years later, when he wanted a new song of Christmas for the children to sing at his church, he reached back in memory for inspiration from his Holy Land visit. The poem he wrote painted in words the sights and sounds of that little town of Bethlehem he had visited. Writing to the children of his congregation, he recalled that first visit: “I remember especially on Christmas Eve, when I was standing in the old church in Bethlehem, close to the spot where Jesus was born, when the whole church was ringing hour after hour with the splendid hymns of praise to God, how again and again it seemed as if I could hear voices I knew well, telling each other of the ‘wonderful night’ of the Savior’s birth.”
It was about two years after his Bethlehem visit, having returned to his parish in Philadelphia, that Brooks composed the poem. Christmas was approaching and Brooks offered his carol for the children to sing. Music was needed, so he asked his Sunday School Superintendent, Lewis Redner, to compose a tune for them to sing. Redner was a wealthy real estate broker who also served as organist and choir director as an avocation. As Sunday School superintendent, Redner saw Sunday School attendance at Holy Trinity grow from thirty-six to over one thousand during his nineteen years in tshat role.
But as the Sunday of the performance approached, even though Redner promised Brooks that he would deliver it on time, he had not been able to come up with anything he felt was suitable. Nothing he tried seemed to fit. It had come down to the last minute, the night before the Christmas Eve service when it was to be sung. Redner recalled the experience in these words. “On the Saturday night previous my brain was all confused about the tune. I thought more about my Sunday-school lesson than I did about the music. But I was roused from sleep late in the night hearing an angel-strain whispering in my ear, and seizing a piece of music paper I jotted down the treble of the tune as we now have it, and on Sunday morning before going to church I filled in the harmony.” We might say that this is the only music we sing which was actually composed by angels around the throne! Neither Brooks nor Redner expected the carol to live on, but it gradually became very familiar in Episcopal circles, and was even included in a hymnal in 1890.
The tune we have come to love is named ST LOUIS, perhaps as an alternate spelling of the composers first name, Lewis. In England, the lyrics are more often sung to the tune FOREST GREEN, used by Ralph Vaughan Williams in the 1906 English Hymnal. The Festival of Lessons and Carols services from King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, typically uses the tune CHRISTMAS CAROL, sometimes also named WENGEN, written by Walford Davies and published in 1922.
While Brooks’ hymn was the result of his visit to Bethlehem, the true inspiration for the text is the Lord Himself, who inspired the prophecy in Micah 5:2 that we hear read each year at this time. “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for Me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.” This was the promise that guided the Magi to Bethlehem, which must have been part of the heritage of the prophetic ministry of Daniel in Babylon centuries earlier, from which those Magi had come.
This has become a “must” for Christmas Eve services.
In stanza 1, we sing of the enormous contrast between darkness and light, themes very prominent in the inspired writings of the apostle John. Imagine yourself standing on a nearby hill, gazing down at the little town after dark, when everyone has gone to bed and blown out the candles in their homes. Silent stars drift by overhead in the sky, giving slight illumination to the dark streets. But the eye of faith can recognize that the Light of the World, the Everlasting Light, is shining there! And it’s in Him that all the prophecies had come to fulfillment, replacing fear with hope.
O little town of Bethlehem, How still we see thee lie;
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years Are met in thee tonight.
In stanza 2, we sing again of the contrast, this time the contrast between sleeping mortals and watchful angels. Christ is named, along with the young mother, Mary. But the unseen spiritual realities go even further. It’s not just angels who are watching with wondering love. It’s even the morning stars that are singing in notes inaudible to the human ear, but in tones that heaven hears and which stir exultant praise. Angels will sing praises to God, and peace to men, for the shepherds to hear. But with our hearts, we should be hearing those themes from the courts of heaven.
For Christ is born of Mary, And gathered all above,
While mortals sleep, the angels keep Their watch of wondering love.
O morning stars, together Proclaim the holy birth!
And praises sing to God the King, And peace to men on earth.
In stanza 3, we sing of the contrast in what is heard. The nighttime scene is tranquil and silent. The angels have departed. But God is speaking to those whose hearts have been made alive to be able to hear His voice. And what He has said is that He is offering the greatest gift the world has ever known … the gift of His Son and of the eternal life that Christ brings. The gift is wondrous in part because it is not only undeserved. This world of sin deserves not a divine gift but rather divine judgment. The gift is for meek souls who recognize their sinfulness and transfer their trust to the Savior, who enters into such hearts.
How silently, how silently, The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming, But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive Him still, The dear Christ enters in.
In stanza 4, the contrast moves from talking about Jesus to talking directly to Him. This stanza is a prayer. It is a musical version of “The Sinner’s Prayer.” We confess that we are sinners. In repentance, we turn from sin; in faith, we turn to Christ. As Jesus told Nicodemus, “You must be born again,” we ask for that work of sovereign grace that would create within our hearts the work of regeneration, and would transform our hearts from throne rooms where we act as our own kings, to a throne room where Jesus is exalted as King of kings. How wonderful that Emmanuel – God with us – is willing to be born in us, and promises to ever abide with us.
O holy Child of Bethlehem, Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in, Be born to us today.
We hear the Christmas angels The great glad tidings tell;
O come to us, abide with us, Our Lord Emmanuel.
The now-omitted original fourth stanza seems directed to children. It soon fell out of favor, with some fearing it lent support to the unbiblical doctrine of Mary’s immaculate conception and the equally unbiblical practice of praying to her.
Where children pure and happy Pray to the blessed Child,
Where misery cries out to thee, Son of the undefiled;
Where charity stands watching And faith holds wide the door,
The dark night wakes, the glory breaks, And Christmas comes once more.
Here is a link to the carol as it was sung in a Christmas service.