He Came Down

He Came Down  
Trad. Cameroonian Song

He came down that we may have love;
he came down that we may have love;
he came down that we may have love;
Hallelujah for evermore.

This song appears to have Cameroonian origins. John Bell (b. 1949), a troubadour of the Iona Community in Scotland, first heard it in the mid-1980s when officiating the wedding of a Cameroonian couple in Frankfort, Germany. Hymnologist Nancy Graham noted, “They requested that it be sung unaccompanied with the guests in a circle, reminiscent of the ring shout prevalent in the music of enslaved Africans in North America and the Caribbean” (Graham, Canterbury Dictionary). Copyrighted by the Wild Goose Resource Group in 1986, Bell included it in his first collection of songs from the world church, Many and Great (1990). In this collection, Bell states, “The song was experienced in Germany at an international conference in 1986 when a group of Presbyterians from Cameroon broke into a song and dance. They moved in a circle, counterclockwise, using their hand to beckon Christ, as it were, from heaven to earth” (Bell, 1990, p. 15). Bell transcribed the song from this experience.

He Came Down is quickly learned through oral/aural transmission because of the repetition of the lines in each stanza with only one word in subsequent stanzas. Most hymnals include “love,” “peace,” and “joy.” Others add “hope,” “light,” and “life.” 
In the oral tradition style of sub-Saharan Africa, a lead singer prompts the next stanza with the question, “Why did he come?” The stanzas suggest that this song is most appropriate during Advent when many congregations light the candles of hope, peace, joy, and love on successive Sundays. Hymn writer and hymnologist Carl P. Daw Jr. correctly notes that the “intention of the text is not narrative but anamnetic: it is not meant to impart new knowledge but to evoke memory and thankfulness” (Daw, 2016, p. 143).

Nancy Graham cites an observation by Ghanaian ethnomusicologist J.H.B. Nketia (1921–2019), who suggested an affinity between the melody of this song and the Caribbean Christmas calypso, “The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy.” Thus, a common origin cannot be ruled out.

The question may arise among some, “Why should I add a song from another culture to our repertoire when we have so many beautiful Christmas carols and hymns to sing in our tradition?” Perhaps a response is evident in John 1:14 : “So the word of God became a human being and lived among us.” Scholars remind us that the word for “lived” has its root in a word that means a tent—a humble, even portable, dwelling reminiscent of the shelter (tabernacle) used by the Israelites and a symbol of God’s presence in the wilderness from bondage in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land. This tent has been pitched around the world as God’s presence has spread through the centuries. Perhaps singing “He Came Down” is one way to understand the immensity of the tent and God’s living presence among us—all of us.

Blessings and Happy Advent,
Dorene

Source: https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/articles/history-of-hymns-he-came-down