Every fortnight people from a farming background, or who have a heart for the countryside in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, offer a personal reflection on faith and rural life. They hope that you will be encouraged by it.

Tomorrow is the second Sunday in Advent – and tis the season to sing carols as Christmas approaches.

Did you know that the traditional opening song of the BBC’s Carols from King’s was written on this island? Once in Royal David’s City was penned by Cecil Frances Alexander, a renowned hymnwriter and poet who spent a lot of her life living in rural parts of Ireland. Throughout many of her hymns, she extensively references the beauty of rural life and nature that she so enjoyed.

A budding poet in her school days, Cecil Frances spent her formative years in the countryside of County Wicklow. She also lived in various rural parishes, including Strabane and Fahan in County Donegal, as her husband, William Alexander, became Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, and later the Archbishop of Armagh. Her writing reflects an acute awareness of nature and the seasons, all observed in the places that she was fully immersed in.

Cattle braced for the cold winter wind on the outskirts of Rathfriland County Down.

placeholder image — Cattle braced for the cold winter wind on the outskirts of Rathfriland County Down.

Throughout her life, Cecil Frances engaged in extensive charitable work, using the proceeds from her popular books of hymns to fund initiatives, often with the rural and urban poor and sick in her community, such as a nursing service and an institution for the deaf and dumb.

She experienced ‘the cold wind in the winter’ and marvelled at ‘all creatures great and small’ that she came across - lines she wrote in her other famous hymn, All Things Bright and Beautiful. On the farm, especially in the cold of winter, I always think of the lines from her carol when I see calves sitting in straw beds and hear cows murmur in the dark:

‘Once in royal David’s city, stood a lowly cattle shed, where a mother laid her baby, in a manger for His bed…’

This was the incredible, humble environment that Jesus was born into as, due to the festivities of the census in Bethlehem, there were no hotel rooms available for Mary and Joseph to ‘check into’.

The words of the last verse of Once in Royal David’s City remind us that while Jesus was born into unassuming surroundings, when He returns, it will be in the glory and splendour of heaven that we, the followers of Jesus, will meet Him:

‘Not in that poor lowly stable, with the oxen standing by, we shall see Him, but in heaven, set at God’s right hand on high…’

On cold winter nights this is an amazing promise that we can hold on to. Jesus’ birth fulfilled the promise given in Genesis that God would provide a Saviour for the sins of Adam and Eve, when sin entered the world in the Garden of Eden. Sin and its consequences continue to separate us from God. Jesus is our redeemer, and as Cecil Francis reminds us in the third verse: ‘…our eyes at last shall see Him, through His own redeeming love…’

As you tend to your sheep, cattle and livestock this winter, in cold, dark, damp nights, and as you sing this carol in the build up to Christmas, may the promise of the magnificence of heaven act as an encouragement to you. Like Cecil Frances, may we give praise for all that the Lord God has made, including a way back to Him through Jesus. For, as it is recorded in Luke 2:11: “Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; He is the Messiah, the Lord.” What wonderful news!

Rebecca McConnell was raised on a mixed farm in Rathfriland, County Down and is a freelance PR and social media consultant, running her own company, Purple Rain, since 2011. She is a member of First Rathfriland Presbyterian Church and is an officer in their Girls’ Brigade Company.

If you would like to talk to someone about any of the issues raised in this article, please email Rev Kenny Hanna, PCI’s Rural Chaplain at [email protected] or call him on 07938 488 372.