These startling words about the Celestial Carpenter are from Caswall’s carol, “See Amid the Winter’s Snow,” with the alternate title, “Hymn for Christmas Day.”
I first became aware of this song on a CD titled, Christmas from English Cathedrals. The CD, produced in 1998, features ten carols from four different cathedrals. The St. Paul Cathedral Choir in London sings “See Amid the Winter’s Snow.”
The depiction of the birth of Jesus as happening in snowy weather strains credulity when you realize the little town of Bethlehem is approximately on the same latitude as Waycross in deep south Georgia, where snow is rare. So our impressions of white Christmases come more from Jolly Old England or New England rather than from Holy Writ. But that’s not all bad. If we see the coming of Jesus in terms of our own environment and our own times, that coming can be much more personal. If we can picture His entrance into our own time and our own weather conditions, this transforms the story. In that way, what we may have viewed as a pleasant tale from the ancient past has resonance and relevance for our own time.
Ken Gire seems to echo Caswall’s thought in a meditation on Mary and Joseph in his book, Intimate Moments with the Savior. Writing of Mary and her newborn Son, Gire says, “She touches his tiny hand. And hands that once sculpted the mountain ranges cling to her finger.”2
These pictures from Edward Caswall’s song and Ken Gire’s meditation throw us off stride. We say we believe Jesus is God’s revelation in human form. But it’s hard to come to terms with these vivid assertions in song and prose, even though they are saying what we claim to believe about Jesus.
If we review the Four Gospels in the order in which they probably were written, the writers of the Gospels, each in turn, seem to give more information about Jesus as “He who built the starry skies” or the tiny hands in the manger as the “hands that once sculpted the mountain ranges.”
Mark is widely regarded as the first Gospel because it is obvious that Matthew and Luke use Mark as their outline and then add material of their own. John is generally considered the latest of the four. If we follow this timeframe, we can see a progression of assertions regarding the nature of Jesus and His relation to all humanity and to the Creator God:
Mark gives no birth details. Rather, he plunges directly into the ministry of Jesus in 1:1, The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. This is followed immediately with the introduction of John the Baptist and Jesus’s own baptism. The words in that opening sentence are exciting and provocative as they refer to Jesus as the Christ and the Son of God. To say Jesus is “Christ” is to say He is the long-hoped-for Messiah because “Christ” is simply the Greek equivalent for the Hebrew word “Messiah,” the promised deliverer.
Calling Jesus “the Son of God” is not identical with saying He is God. But this term indicates Jesus is from God and that He stands in a special relationship with God as His Father.
Matthew, for several reasons, is generally regarded as written for a Jewish audience. One example is the thirteen times this Gospel points to events in the birth, ministry, and death of Jesus as fulfillment of Hebrew Scripture.
The first stanza of Caswall’s carol picks up on this as it points to Jesus as the fulfillment of prophecy: "See the tender Lamb appears, Promised from eternal years."
The prophecies Matthew uses include the virgin birth as fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14. The traditional King James Version shows how Matthew uses this passage: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel, a name which means “God with us.” Matthew cites this passage, stating in 1:22, All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.
So Matthew wants his readers to see Jesus in a Jewish context. To set that mood, the opening words of this Gospel link Jesus with King David and with Abraham, the father of the Jewish faith: The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham (1:1).
Luke makes a broader appeal. This author is generally considered to have been a a non-Jew, a Gentile. Like Matthew, Luke tells of the virgin-born Savior, in this case, announced by angels to the shepherds in the field. Luke also gives a genealogy in chapter 3, but he reverses Matthew’s chronological pattern, starting with Jesus and working back, all the way back to Adam.
John is almost universally acknowledged among scholars as the latest and is often referred to simply as “the Fourth Gospel.” In this Fourth Gospel, the writer starts where Luke stops, namely with God the Creator and the beginning of all things:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made (1:1-2).
In verse 14. John clearly identifies this Word who was from the very beginning:
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.
So there is no question that John is describing one who is Very God of Very God come to earth as a human being. That One is Jesus whom the earlier Gospels have portrayed both as Son of God in Mark and as the son of an earthly virgin mother in Matthew and Luke.
We recognize, then, that the lines from Edward Caswall’s song and Ken Gire’s prose spring full-grown from the first and third verses of John:
In verse 1 of John, the Eternal Word was in the beginning with God, and, indeed, the Word was
God. Then, verse 3 declares this Eternal Word (Jesus) to have been a partner in creating all things. This, then is a biblical foundation for those Christmas lyrics: "Lo, within a manger lies He who built the starry skies . . ."
A less well-known passage in Colossians 1:15-20 is even more elaborate in its assertion that Jesus is at one with God and that He was active in creating everything:
He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities -- all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in everything he might be pre-eminent. For in him all the fulness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
That theme is restated later in Colossians 2:9-10: For in him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fulness of life in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.
Despite these ringing affirmations from Christian Scripture, those who are inclined to walk more by sight rather than by faith find Jesus the Eternal Architect impossible to believe.
Within contemporary biblical scholarship, there is a branch of scholars who reject the miraculous element. Passages emphasizing the virgin birth and Jesus as eternally pre-existent are rejected out of hand. If biblical stories or sermons cannot be explained by modern reason, they are declared invalid.
We need not relegate matters of faith to the junk pile. Life is full of marvels which the human mind will never fully comprehend.
In “See Amid the Winter’s Snow,” the recurring chorus greets the blessed day of His birth as the dawn of redemption:
Sing through all Jerusalem, Christ is born in Bethlehem.
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