Jelks 1When Robert MacGimsey, a white Louisianan, published his spiritual “Sweet Little Jesus Boy” in 1934 the world was just as hellish as it is today. The Nazi regime under Adolf Hitler had come to power in Germany, Francisco Franco’s right wing military government was wresting control of Spain in a civil war, Benito Mussolini gave false pretexts in justifying Italy’s invasion into Ethiopia, and the Japanese government under Emperor Showa (Hirohito) were precisely planning their imperialistic invasions into China and Korea. In the United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt continued to experiment with a wide variety of public policies–the New Deal– in an effort to renew the American economy, all the while southern senators were successfully stifling black life by voting against anti-lynching bills, voter protection, and the most minimal attempts to protect civil rights. And finally, the legal case of the Scottsboro Boys in which nine young black men and boys were falsely charged with rape of two young white women in Alabama was the cause célèbre of 1930s.

MacGimsey penned his song during hard times and it spoke to hard times. His spiritual drew upon a long-standing African American Protestant theological tradition that began in slavery of merging the Christian Gospel narratives with black experiences of life, death, and transcendence. In MacGimsey’s spiritual the reality of the Jesus story was not something in the past, but a present reality.

Sweet little Jesus boy
They made you be born in a manger
Sweet little holy child
We didn’t know who you were
Didn’t know you’d come to save us Lord
To take our sins away
Our eyes were blind, we could not see
We didn’t know who you were

Long time ago
You were born
Born in a manger Lord
Sweet little Jesus boy
The world treats you mean Lord
Treats me mean too
But that’s how things are down here
We don’t know who you are….

MacGimsey’s refrain “We don’t know who you were” and “We don’t know who you are” is a pertinent reminder that the narrative of the Jesus boy is a universal story. In our world there are so many children who are born under duress in mangers, shantytowns, back alleys and squalid conditions and then sent to the gallows just like Jesus. Like the Sweet Little Jesus Boy we treat God’s children badly. We arrest them, execute them, exploit them, and bomb them with an impunity that is unconscionable at the same time so many people are apoplectic about abortions in our society. This is especially true of black boys in American society. This is why MacGimsey ends his song with a call forgiveness and recognition.

You have told us how
We are trying
Master you have shown us how
Even when you were dying
Just seems like we can’t do right
Look how we treated you
But please Sir forgive us Lord
We didn’t know it was you
Sweet little Jesus boy
Born a long time ago
Sweet little holy child
We didn’t know who you were

The cosmic nature of the Jesus story is that all of us are the children of God, but the world does not recognize the divine in any of us. Even on this Christmas day children are being executed the world over on mean streets, in wars, and through court proceedings and by the judgments of our religious institutions just as the forces of government and religiosity executed the Jesus boy. Today, after all the gifts have been opened, let us keep in mind that the Gospel narrative of the Sweet Jesus boy is our story too. The Gospel message, the good news, is that a child born in inhospitable circumstances can become a man or woman that speaks to the ages and offer us liberation from our personal fears and the spiritual strength to resist our social and political oppressions.

Enjoy Mahalia Jackson’s plaintive and prayerful interpretation of MacGimsey’s song and merry Christmas.