In 1865, William Chatterton Dix penned a poem that would become the beloved Christmas-time favorite, “What Child is This?” This year for Advent and Christmas, we will be prompted by this carol to ask deeper questions of Jesus’ identity, “what child IS this?” When we look beyond the lullaby, what we discover is that the answers are much more complicated than the lilting lullaby tune conveys. The time of Jesus’ birth was fraught with difficulties. This is the scene into which Jesus was born. We are called, as his disciples, to enter the scene in the midst of our own complicated and difficult time in history, offering Hope as the Christ Child did.