LOOK: Little Christ by Roman Barabakh
LISTEN: “He Has Come, the Christ of God” | Words by Horatius Bonar, 1857 | Music by Ryan DeLange, 2016 | Performed by Janelle Jackson and Mike Juday, 2017
He has come, the Christ of God:
Left for us his glad abode;
Stooping from his throne of bliss
To this darksome wilderness.Refrain 1:
He has come, the Prince of Peace:
Come to bid our sorrows cease;
Come to scatter with his light
All the shadows of our night.He, the mighty King, has come,
Making this poor earth his home:
Come to bear our sin’s sad load,
Son of David, Son of God.Refrain 2:
He has come, whose Name of grace
Speaks deliverance to our race:
Left for us his glad abode,
Son of Mary, Son of God.Unto us a Child is born:
Ne’er has earth beheld a morn,
Among all the morns of time,
Half so glorious in its prime.Refrain 3:
Unto us a Son is given:
He has come from God’s own heaven,
Bringing with him from above
Holy peace and holy love.
While he was a worship pastor at Bayou City Fellowship in Houston, Ryan DeLange wrote a new tune for this nineteenth-century Christmas hymn by Horatius Bonar, a Scotsman who is best known for “Be Still, My Soul.” To hear DeLange discuss what drew him to this hymn, see season 2, episode 2 of the Hymnistry podcast, which aired December 5, 2016. He performs the song at 9:22 of the episode, and at 27:01, Pastor Jacob Breeze charges listeners to “keep the party going” for all twelve days of Christmas.
Click here for the chord chart.
The 2016 video above is from Scarlet City Church in Columbus, Ohio. The singer is Janelle Jackson, and she’s accompanied on guitar by Rev. Mike Juday, who was the church’s music pastor at the time but who is now the associate rector of Village Church Anglican in Greenville, South Carolina.
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