Christmas Song #7: Lord of Compassion
Benjamin Russell Hanby’s 1866 song starts with a Baby in a stall. But we watch as the Baby becomes a Man. What kind of a Man is He?
Who is He the people bless
For His words of gentleness?
Who is He to whom they bring
All the sick and sorrowing?
I don’t know what Hanby had in mind when he wrote about Jesus’ “words of gentleness”. In the Bible, the word gentleness is related to Jesus’ humility. He is long-suffering and patient with our faults and sins.
Gentleness is, of course, part of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). Jesus described Himself as gentle or meek in Matthew 11:29 –
Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
Matthew 11:28-29
The people knew that Jesus was compassionate – which is one reason why they brought the sick to Him. We read in Matthew 14:14, “And when He went ashore, He saw a large crowd, and felt compassion for them and healed their sick.”
Early in Jesus’ life, he was teaching in a synagogue. The people called His teaching “gracious”. Maybe this is the story Hanby had in mind. Jesus had just read from the Isaiah scroll:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
Luke 4:18-19
Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives,
And recovery of sight to the blind,
To set free those who are oppressed,
To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.”
Jesus then started to teach: “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21)
Jesus Himself came to bring freedom.
It’s interesting to note here the other song that Hanby is famous for. Not a Christmas song, not a religious song, but a ballad entitled Darling Nelly Gray.
The song is written from the point of view of a man longing for his darling, who has been “taken away”. As the song goes on, you discover what has actually happened:
I went to see her, but “she’s gone!” the neighbors say
The white man bound her with his chain;
They have taken her to Georgia for to wear her life away,
As she toils in the cotton and the cane.
It was a love ballad that was also an anti-slavery song. Hanby looked to the freedom promised in Christ, and saw the evils in his own time, and wanted to do something about it. His father, a pastor, also wanted to see an end to slavery in the United States.
Darling Nelly Gray was written ten years before Who Is He in Yonder Stall?. We can look to Christ and His teaching as the answer to the oppression in this world.
But there is more to the story, because Nelly was a real person. We’ll learn more about her in a future post.