Why “In the Bleak Midwinter” is my Favourite Carol
As a boy, I remember watching a Christmas TV show where a woman with a guitar sang “In the Bleak Midwinter”. I loved the soulful tune and atmosphere it created. Now over half a century later it is my favourite Christmas carol, in part because of the music, but mostly because of the lyrics. It seems to me to evoke the most personal response of any carol.
The words were written by the English poet Christina Rossetti, around 1872, and this is why I love them so much…
In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.
The first verse feels a little like Victorian sentimentality — I doubt there was snow on the ground where Jesus was born. But it is a literary device to set the environment into which the Saviour was born. The word “bleak” means lacking in warmth, life, or kindliness. Jesus was indeed born into a bleak society; into a people under occupation by a ruthless empire, impoverished by taxes to a foreign king, without any real hope of liberation. To such a people a child was born.
Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.
In verse two we are presented with the unimaginable contrast between the humility of Jesus’ birth and his true nature as the Lord God Almighty. I love that heaven cannot hold him, and the picture of heaven and earth fleeing away when he comes to reign.
Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air,
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.
In verse three we are reminded of the super-natural nature of the Messiah’s birth. Angels were certainly involved. Did Mary know that when she kissed her baby, she was kissing the face of God? I think she did.
What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him,
Give my heart.
In verse four we have the jewel in the crown. Here we are invited to respond to the Son given to us, born that we might be free, the treasure of heaven given to you and me. We are all indeed poor, even the richest person in the world is poor before him. And yet, you have something precious that not even God Almighty would take from you, even if he could — you have your heart. Will you give it to him? Will you give your love to the one who was born in a stable-place, who was rich and yet for your sake became poor, so that through his poverty you might become rich?
