Songs of Christmas: What Child Is This?

In this Christmas season, consider the lyrics of the popular song, “What Child Is This?”  [Watch the video below.]

What Child is this
Who laid to rest
On Mary’s lap is sleeping?
Whom angels greet with anthems sweet,
While shepherds watch are keeping?

Now read a passage from the book of Hebrews. Hebrews 10 shares a conversation in the heavens, a divine insight into the coming into the world of the second Person of the Trinity.

“For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when He come into the world, He says, ‘Sacrifices and offering Thou hast not desired. But a body Thou hast prepared for Me . . . Behold, I have come (in the roll of the book it is written of Me) to do Thy will, O God . . .’ Then He said, ‘Behold, I have come to do Thy will.’ He takes away the first in order to establish the second. By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Hebrews 10: 4-5, 7, 9-10)

What a magnificent text regarding the miracle of Christmas. A conversation in which the Son says, “Sacrifices and offering (the old practices of the law – note Heb 10:1-3) Thou hast not desired.”  Therefore, “. . . a body Thou has prepared for Me.”  And willingly the Son of God says, “Behold, I have come . . . to do Thy will, O God.”  And what was God’s will for Jesus to accomplish?  To take … “. . . away the first in order to establish the second.”

The people the words of Hebrews 10 were written to were thinking of going back to the old system, but it was “impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb 10:4).  It was impossible for that system to “make perfect those who draw near” (Heb 10:1). It only served as a reminder that a greater sacrifice was needed. . . and promised.

What Child is This?

God, in His great plan of salvation, set about to send His Son into the world. And He did this by preparing a perfect body for God the Son to inhabit, a body that would be born as are all mankind.  God Himself prepared this body and by the power of the Holy Spirit placed the body into the womb of a young, virgin girl . . . 

“And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb, and bear a son, and you will name Him Jesus’ . . . And Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ And the angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God.’” (Luke 1:30-31, 34-35)

 
These words should stir great wonder in all of us.  Christmas . . . the time when Jesus came into the world, is a most special time, a time of miracles. The non-believer pays little attention to this power of the Most High, but we do. From what is written in the Bible, we know what Child this is. We know that this Child is Christ the King, whom shepherds guard and angels sing…