A 28-year-old insurance company manager took up his pen to write about something more profound than his livelihood. He crafted poetry to answer the question, “What child is this?” With those verses written in 1865, William Dix would become a part of the Christmas tradition in the English-speaking world.
There’s hardly a more clarifying question than, “Who is Jesus?” The skeptic may dismiss the Bible’s prophecies and narratives which answer the question. World religions may have their own explanations. But the Biblical answers could not be clearer.
The Hebrew prophet Isaiah, who lived 700 years before Jesus was born, foretold a future nativity. “A child will be born to us…and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father” (Isa. 9:6). Would a human child be God? If that were not remarkable enough, the prophets also specified that the child would be from Bethlehem, born of a virgin, and called out of Egypt, all of which are now documented history.
Men who encountered Jesus were convinced of His deity. One of His disciples wrote that He was the Word who “was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Apostle Paul wrote, “He is the image of the invisible God…by Him all things were created…and in Him all things hold together” (Col. 1:15-17). Jesus Himself staked claim to God’s name “I Am,” such that people tried to stone Him for it (John 8:58).
Isaiah wanted us to know the divine purpose for the Messiah. He would be the suffering servant, despised, smitten, and pierced. He would be “crushed for our iniquities” as a guilt offering. Yet He would remain the Righteous One (Isa. 53).
The identity of Jesus as the Son of Man and God the Son is engraved on the celebration of Christmas. It combines “the idea of a baby and the idea of unknown strength that sustains the stars,” writes G.K. Chesterton. “Omnipotence and impotence, or divinity and infancy, do definitely make a sort of epigraph which a million repetitions cannot turn into a platitude. Bethlehem is emphatically a place where extremes meet.” Even a non-believing, casual observer of the Christian roots of the Christmas holiday can see that it is a celebration of extremes – the Creator stepping into His creation as a human.
And so goes Mr. Dix’s answer to the question. “This, this is Christ the King; Whom shepherds guard and angels sing…Nails, spears shall pierce him through; The cross he bore for me, for you. Hail, hail the Word made flesh, the Babe, the Son of Mary.”
This is the Christmas question for you to ponder in your heart. What Child is this? Who is Jesus? Was He a legend, a lunatic, or a liar? Or is He God the Son, Lord of all? The truth is already on display.