Advent Day 15 - Away in a Manger

"We often think of this song as a Christmas carol sung by children, not only because of its depiction of the baby Jesus, but also because it talks about little children going to sleep in their cradles at night with the Savior Jesus watching over them. But actually this song was written more for a mother to sing over her children. It is her prayer for them, based on Luke’s account that Mary “gave birth to her first child, a son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger” (Luke 2:7). 

The simplicity of this verse portrays the most staggering truth of all time—that God became a baby. The God of the universe, the Lord of glory, the one who created the heavens and the earth, the one who sustains all things by the power of his word, poured himself into the flesh of an infant. He wasn’t born into a royal household of comfort and cleanliness, but came in the lowliest of ways to the lowliest of people. The very God who spoke “Let there be light” and there was light set aside the privileges and power of deity to become a baby who needed his mother. We’ve sung this carol so many times that we may barely even consider what this means. But this concept is unimaginable, incomprehensible: God became a baby.

We don’t know who wrote this carol, and we don’t know what the author meant by, “But little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes.” Certainly Jesus cried as a baby. He was completely human, and human babies cry. We can never think that because Jesus was fully God, he somehow did not feel what humans feel. In fact, we know that Jesus cried as an adult. He wept over Jerusalem because they would not accept him. And he wept at the tomb of his friend Lazarus. So when we sing “no crying He makes,” we should assume that this song’s writer was giving us a snapshot of a peaceful scene in Bethlehem, as if the writer looked upon the young couple with their baby in the manger. The baby, at least at that moment, was content and not crying.

But the scene changes dramatically at the end of the second stanza, when we sing, “I love Thee, Lord Jesus, look down from the sky.” We’ve been focusing on the baby Jesus sleeping in the cradle, but now the Lord Jesus is looking down from the sky.

That’s because the mother singing this prayer over her sleeping children has moved her gaze from the picture of Jesus born as a baby in Bethlehem to where Jesus is now—risen from the dead, ascended to the right hand of God. Her prayer is not to a helpless baby, but to the risen, ascended King Jesus, and she is asking him to protect her sleeping child, to “stay by my cradle till morning is nigh.”

The third stanza was added to this song sometime after the other stanzas were first written, and it moves from praying for the protecting presence of Christ to praying for the transforming work of Christ. The praying mother asks Jesus to “fit us for heaven to live with Thee there.” She knows that on our own we are not fit for heaven. Without the transforming work of Christ in our lives, we simply cannot expect to live with Christ in the holiness of heaven. So this mother’s prayer is that Christ would not only watch over her children while they sleep, but that he would also draw them to himself, making them “fit” for heaven."[1]

-- Nancy Guthrie 

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[Verse 1]
Away in a manger, no crib for His bed
The little Lord Jesus laid down His sweet head
The stars in the bright sky looked down where He lay
The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay

[Verse 2]
The cattle are lowing, the poor Baby awakes
But little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes
I love Thee, Lord Jesus! Look down from the night sky
And stay by my side till morning is nigh

[Verse 3]
Be near me, Lord Jesus; I ask Thee to stay
Close by me forever, and love me I pray
Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care
And take us to Heaven to live with Thee there

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[1] Guthrie, Nancy. Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room: Daily Family Devotions for Advent . Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.. Kindle Edition.