At Least Sufjan Stevens Knows (What Child Is This [Anyway]?)

I should not find it surprising that some hymns and carols born in the 1700's and 1800's have become twisted and turned over time and are now, in some ways, pale shadows of their original forms. Observant readers will have seen this already in some of the carols presented during this series and today's carol – What Child Is This?, written by William Chatterton Dix in 1865 during a bout of depression following a severe illness – is yet-another example of critical components being left out or forgotten.

Most of you are familiar with the carol repeating the refrain beginning "This, this is Christ the King..." after each verse. The truth is, the hymn was written with three distinct verses. Verse one is a question/response pair: "What Child is this? / This is Christ the King!". Verse two begins somewhat rhetorically out of shock and confusion – Why is the King of Kings lying *here*? and answers/foreshadows: "So He can die on the cross for me and for you". It ends with a call to response in verse three, imploring us to offer up our treasures and to lift our hearts and voices in joy and thanksgiving for God's great gift to us.

Out of the seventeen different vocal versions in my iTunes library, only one - by Sufjan Stevens - contains the verses in the original form on track 17 - What Child Is This, Anyway on his Songs for Christmas collection. (If you do hit up iTunes for that, you would do well to check out his beautiful version of Holy, Holy, Holy while you are there).

Why we seem to be so intent on removing the parts about Christ's ultimate sacrifice completely baffles me. The birth event is not the cool part of the story, though it may be the cute part (babies do *rock*). I suspect we would rather not be reminded of the tragic scene on the cross when we are opening up our painstakingly wrapped presents on Christmas day. If that is the reason you tend to gravitate towards less inspired works (e.g. "Jingle Bells") during this season, I offer this song, written by someone whom I am privileged to have prayed with, worshipped with and call my friend, Joe Day (@joeday) who is a worship pastor at Mars Hill and also one of the creative master craftsmen behind The City:

Here it is sung by Loma at the West Seattle campus of Mars Hill [mp3].

The work of the cross is the real reason for the season.

If you can, try to sneak a copy of the the following original form of What Child Is This to your worship leader/choir director and see it moves him or her to think out of the box this Christmas and present Dix's Spirit-inspired work in full.

If the original form is the one you are familiar with, I'd be interested in how you came to discover it (drop a note in the comments).