dual personalities

“Away in a Manger” is a Christmas carol first published in an Evangelical Lutheran Sunday School collection, Little Children’s Book for Schools and Families in 1885 in Philadelphia and used widely throughout the English-speaking world. For many years the text was credited to the great German reformer Martin Luther because in the book Dainty Songs for Little Lads and Lasses (1887) it bore the title “Luther’s Cradle Hymn” and the note, “Composed by Martin Luther for his children, and still sung by German mothers to their little ones.” This is pretty much accepted as not the case, but it is nice to think so.

Luther was, after all, a prolific hymn writer, authoring many important hymns including Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott (A Mighty Fortress Is Our God), based on Psalm 46. And Luther was a married man and the father of six children. He married Katharina von Bora, one of 12 nuns he had helped escape from the Nimbschen Cistercian convent in April 1523, and we are led to believe he never regretted it. Luther confided to Michael Stiefel on 11 August 1526: “My Katie is in all things so obliging and pleasing to me that I would not exchange my poverty for the riches of Croesus.” Would that all husbands felt this way.

Anyway, it is one of my favorite Christmas carols, expressing in a wonderful childlike way, the bottom line of Christmas: God incarnate.

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

The cattle are lowing
The poor Baby wakes
But little Lord Jesus
No crying He makes

I love Thee, Lord Jesus
Look down from the sky
And stay by my side,
‘Til morning is nigh.

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