Third Sunday of Advent (Sunday, December 15th, 2024)

If you’re new to Advent Song Reflections, click here to learn about it

Click here to follow the Advent Song Reflections playlist on Spotify.
(please note—due to copyright, versions of songs on the playlist may differ from those used here)


Words of Reflection

On the remaining Sundays during Advent we sit with an instrumental version of a popular carol. There is no written devotional for the day, just an invitation to ponder the words of the carol (found after the video) in a spirit of prayer and listening. What is God’s invitation for you in these words? How do they fill you with hope, with peace, with joy, or with love? What words or phrases in this carol move you to prayer and worship?

Song: Once in Royal David’s City

Carol Lyrics

Once in royal David's city
Stood a lowly cattle shed
Where a mother laid her baby
In a manger for his bed
Mary was that mother mild
Jesus Christ her little child

He came down to earth from heaven
Who is God and Lord of all
And his shelter was a stable
And his cradle was a stall
With the poor and meek and lowly
Lived on earth our Savior holy

Jesus is our childhood's pattern
Day by day like us he grew
He was little weak and helpless
Tears and smiles like us he knew
And he feels for all our sadness
And he shares in all our gladness

And our eyes at last shall see him
Through his own redeeming love
For that child so dear and gentle
Is our Lord in heaven above
And he leads his children on
To the place where he has gone