What Child Is This?

William Chatterton Dix

Who is that child asleep in Mary’s lap?  That’s the question asked by our beloved hymn this week, as the poet, William Chatterton Dix, gently invites us to think about who Jesus is, who we are, and why his birth is good news indeed.

Many of our most beautiful hymns assume that Jesus was born in the night, and that’s reasonable enough, since the shepherds…