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carolers would recognize as “O Come, All Ye Faithful” appeared first in
Murray’s Hymnal
in 1852. Since then it has been translated into more than 125 other languages.
    Any political dimension, if there ever was one, has long since been rendered obsolete, and the song remains a firm favorite among the real faithful at Christmas.
    So all the ingredients for a mystery are there … or are they? And even if the conspiracy theory was true, it wouldn’t be the first time God had taken something worldly and turned it into something sublime.
    This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church
.
    E PHESIANS 5:32

Infant Holy, Infant Lowly
    Infant holy, Infant lowly
,
For His bed a cattle stall
.
Oxen lowing, little knowing

Christ, the Babe, is Lord of all
.
Swift are winging angels singing
,
Noels ringing, tidings bringing:

Christ, the Babe, is Lord of all!

Christ, the Babe, is Lord of all!

The Greatest Mystery
    I nfant Holy, Infant Lowly” sums up the contrasts in the life of Jesus Christ. How could He be both?
    Originally a Polish hymn called
“W Zlobie Lezy”
or “He Lies in a Cradle,” it was the work of Piotr Skarga, a sixteenth-century Jesuit priest. A man of contrasts himself, he founded a college, a pawnshop, and a bank, all for the aid of the poor, but still managed to be a major force in Poland’s political history.
    The music for the hymn reached England long before the text did, being attached to several other songs. It took a war to finally unite the music with an English version of Skarga’s words. Two years after the end of World War I, perhaps influenced by the songs of displaced Poles, Edith Margaret Gellibrand Reed turned “W Zlobie Lezy” into “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly.”
    Edith Reed was a traveler and editor of music magazines. She also wrote mystery (or miracle) plays about the birth of Christ, exploring the “mystery” of God becoming man. The similarity between the plays and the hymn may have been what inspired her to work on the translation.
    “Infant Holy, Infant Lowly” leaves listeners in no doubt that even though this child was born in the lowest of circumstances, He was still, mysteriously and miraculously, “the Lord of all.” The Creator became part of His very own creation. And even though He came to save the whole world—well, He isn’t going to do that in a straightforward way either. With the salvation of humankind as His holy mission, He, mysteriously and miraculously, has one lowly human as His priority. As the song says in its last line, “Christ the Babe was born for you.”
    And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God
.
    L UKE 1:35

Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending
    Lo, He comes with clouds descending
,
Once for favored sinners slain;

Thousand thousand saints attending

Swell the triumph of His train
.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

God appears on earth to reign
.

The End of the Beginning
    L o, He Comes with Clouds Descending” was very much a Methodist hymn—but no faith or denomination owns the copyright to beauty. Divinely inspired, songs like this become gifts to the whole world.
    John Cennick, author of the original version, spent his early teens living the low life in London, gambling, lying, and stealing.
    A meeting with John Wesley, a founder of the Methodists, turned Cennick’s life around. Wesley found him a job and Cennick became the first Methodist lay preacher, though he would spend the greater part of his life founding Moravian churches in Ireland.
    His meeting with John Wesley also introduced him to Charles, John’s brother. The junior Wesley, a hugely prolific hymn writer, would take Cennick’s hymn “Lo, He Comes with Countless Trumpets” and rewrite it as “Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending.” Charles Wesley published his version in
Hymns of