What Child Is This?

Mandisa's reading keeps William Chatterton Dix's question-and-answer structure across all three verses, opening with real uncertainty rather than an answer already assumed: "what child is this, who laid to rest on Mary's lap is sleeping." The song lets the question breathe before resolving it.

The answer arrives immediately after, repeated as the refrain each time: "this, this is Christ, the king, whom shepherds guard and angels sing." Question, then answer, three times through — the structure itself becomes a kind of catechism.

The final verse pulls in the magi's gifts directly — "so bring him incense, gold and myrrh" — while the shepherds who first found the sleeping child give the carol its opening scene. "The king of kings, salvation brings" answers the title's question with the largest possible claim, delivered as plainly as the question that opened the song.