[19] 118 See Him Lying On A Bed Of Straw

‘See him lying on a bed of straw;
Draughty stable with an open door,
Mary cradling the babe she bore;
---The Prince of Glory is his name:

O now carry me to Bethlehem
To see the Lord appear to men,
Just as poor as was the stable then,
---The Prince of Glory when he came.’

I had a tiring, energetic, physically challenging but thoroughly excellent day today, rehearsing for and performing a gig in Manchester. It was with a Latin Fusion band called Diàspora, playing music from across the New World. This was the first time I’ve performed with this band, so I was excitedly nervous, and to tell the truth I was quite on-edge at all times, and anxious to make a good impression. This fizzy mix of emotions, music and carbonated drinks made me think of ‘See Him Lying’; possibly the brightest of all the songs in my hymn book.
I just want to concentrate on one line today; ‘O now carry me to Bethlehem’, and from that just one word; ‘carry’. Have you noticed that before? I hadn’t until I looked just now. Why on earth has hymn-writer Michael Perry decided to use that turn of phrase?

I think we can solve this by considering who it is that we are asking to carry us. We aren’t given a person to aim our demands at in the first lines of the first verse and chorus (‘see’, ‘carry me’), since Mary and Jesus are being viewed, not taking part in the action, so it’s a bit of a problem.

In verse two, we sing imperatives to the guiding star, and to the shepherds. Perhaps we are here situating ourselves as onlookers to the shepherds, asking them to physically take us to the stable. Perhaps, by singing to the star, we are asking the same of the wise men.

Verse 3 addresses the angels, maybe going one step further on from asking for human guidance and going for heavenly help. The ‘carry me’ in the subsequent chorus is therefore addressed to them; I’m imagining again a physical carrying, a flight-footedness granted by the angels.

Verse 4 really comes out and says it. The words talk to Jesus directly, glorifying the righting of wrongs and the dualities of the Nativity. How beautiful then is that fourth chorus, when we ask Jesus himself to take us to see his birth! Remember that the aim of our journey, for which we are asking help, is to see for ourselves the wonder of Christ’s coming. Also remember that Christ was born for carrying; bearing our sins, bearing our selves.

The problem of the initial ‘carry me’ still remains. There is no one in the first verse to direct it to, since we’re telling them to ‘see’ all the characters we mention. May I humbly put my two-penneth in. ‘O now carry me to Bethlehem’ is a request to be brought closer to God by better understanding the Nativity tale. I see the first chorus as an invocation of the very story itself – we’re asking the legend to take us back to that one night in Judah. By ‘legend’ I’m referring to the ‘draughty stable with an open door’ for example, which aren’t ideas specified in the Bible. The stable may have been perfectly well insulated! The ‘open door’ is part of the folk-lore of Christmas.

It’s the narrative, the characters, the structure, the seemingly unnecessary detail, that we are hoping will ‘carry us to Bethlehem’ in this carol. The telling of the story is important, as well as the facts it contains. Thanks be to God!