The Lord, the King of Glory
Benjamin Russell Hanby was born in Ohio on July 22, 1833, and in his short life taught school, became a United Brethren minister, started a singing school, was editor for John Church publishers in Cincinnati and composed many songs and hymns before he died of tuberculosis March 15, 1867. Best known for the secular Christmas song Up on the Housetop and the folk song Darling Nellie Gray, Hanby published the hymn Who is He? in 1866.[1]
Who is He? is an appropriate hymn for the Feast of Candlemas, which observed each year on the Christian calendar on February 2. This celebration of the presentation of Jesus can be thought of as the final epiphany of Jesus’ infancy. It happens forty days from Christmas Day, which corresponds with Jesus’ presentation in the temple forty days after his birth. As Ashley Tumlin Wallace notes, “It is the final epiphany where Jesus is revealed as the ‘light for revelation to the Gentiles’ and our Savior.[2]
In this hymn, Hanby gives an outline of how Jesus was presented, and presented himself, to the world. It begins at the beginning, with the shepherds who were the first to witness the newborn Savior in the manger and moves to when Jesus began his ministry with forty days of fasting and temptation.
Who is he born in the stall, at whose feet the shepherds fall?
Who is he in deep distress, fasting in the wilderness?
Hanby then points out the care and compassion with which Jesus presented himself to people. Matthew sums this up with Jesus’ own words: Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matthew 11:29 NLT). Multiple times in the Gospels we read of people coming to Jesus for healing or family members seeking deliverance from spiritual bondage for a loved one. As Michael Card describes him, the “Gentle Healer . . . touched blind eyes and the darkness left to stay. But more than the blindness, He took their sins away.” Such was how Jesus presented himself to the world.
Who is he the people bless for his words of gentleness?
Who is he to whom they bring all the sick and sorrowing?
Just like us, Jesus experienced the highs and lows of human experience. Although he was God incarnate with the power to raise people from death, he identified with and experienced the emotional sting that death brings. He knew the thrill of receiving public adulation at his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, though he knew it would not last very long.
Who is he that stands and weeps at the grave where Lazarus sleeps?
Who is he the gathering throng greet with loud triumphant song?
Indeed, the public admiration would last just a few short days – less than a week – and he would find himself alone in agonizing prayer to his heavenly Father in preparation for dying an excruciating death on a criminal’s cross to atone for the sin of the world.
Lo, at midnight, who is he prays in dark Gethsemane?
Who is he upon the tree dies in grief and agony?
Thankfully, the grave was not the end of the story of Jesus, and B. R. Hanby closes his hymn with the “good news” that Jesus rose from death and emerged from the grave as the conqueror of death, the deliverer from sin, and ascended to heaven where today he reigns as King of kings and Lord of lords.
Who is he that from the grave comes to heal and help and save?
Who is he that from his throne rules through all the world alone?
Each of the stanzas of Hanby’s hymn are framed in the form of a question, but the refrain that Hanby writes to follow each stanza is a glorious answer to each question. And it is the same answer for each question. Who is the One who came from heaven to Bethlehem’s manger, who sacrificially served people and entered into their pain, who suffered and died and rose again and lives today? And what should our attitude toward him be? Hanby answers with great zeal:
‘Tis the Lord, O wondrous story!
‘Tis the Lord, the King of glory!
At his feet we humbly fall,
Crown him, crown him Lord of all!
Enjoy this presentation of the hymn by The Talley Trio.
Who is He in Yonder Stall?
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[1] https://hymnary.org/person/Hanby_BR
[2] https://anglicancompass.com/the-presentation-of-our-lord-the-message-of-candlemas/
