This past Sunday evening, our church hosted an ecumenical offering of “Advent Lessons & Carols.” I was blessed by the area pastors who joined in reading Scripture, the sense of unity as Christians from a variety of denominations gathered together for song and reflection. And the music, offered by Diane Penning alongside of our own music ministry, was transformative.
One song in particular struck me as deeply meaningful. It is “Sweet Little Jesus Boy,” published in 1934 by Robert MacGimsey. Though he was not a black composer, MacGimsey spent much of his early years in Louisiana around the African-American community and he wrote the song in the style of an African-American spiritual. One of the greatest renditions is the one offered by Mahalia Jackson (you can easily find it on YouTube), but Diane’s offering was also tremendously powerful.
If you’ve never heard the song, it centers around the sadness and feeling of penitence that we did not recognize the Christ child when he came. In the third stanza, the singer mourns, “Just seem like we can’t do right, look how we treated you. But please, sir, forgive us, Lord – We didn’t know ’twas you.”
As Diane sang, I was reminded how this truth is one of the fundamental teachings of the Advent season, as Christians prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ in Bethlehem. The religious and powerful in the first century didn’t see that it was God incarnate in that small baby crying in the stable next to the inn. The religious and the powerful didn’t see that it was God incarnate in the itinerant carpenter’s son turned preacher from Nazareth. In fact, the religious and the powerful found the way he challenged accepted beliefs and practices, found the very people he spent time with, so unsettling that they conspired to torture and kill him.
If we remember this truth, every single one of us will hopefully take a moment in this season to pause and reflect. Because missing the coming of Christ in the child Jesus was not just an historical accident. It is something Jesus himself warned that religious people would continue to do. At the last judgment, when the Lord sends the accursed to eternal fire, he is very clear about why, “Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’” (Matthew 25:44–45)
Jesus is saying that when we see someone who is hungry or thirsty, we are seeing Christ himself. When we see someone naked or sick, we are seeing Christ himself. And, even more troubling perhaps for American Christians who like their Jesus respectable, when we see someone in prison, we are seeing Christ himself. And when we see someone who is a stranger – the Greek word being xenos, literally meaning foreigner and the same word from which we get xenophobia – we are seeing Christ himself. What we do for someone in any of these situations is an action done to our Lord Christ.
When we wrestle honestly with this verse, we will have to acknowledge that there are many times Christ has come to us and, like the singer in the song, “We didn’t know it was you.”
If you’ve never heard the song, it centers around the sadness and feeling of penitence that we did not recognize the Christ child when he came. In the third stanza, the singer mourns, “Just seem like we can’t do right, look how we treated you. But please, sir, forgive us, Lord – We didn’t know ’twas you.”
As Diane sang, I was reminded how this truth is one of the fundamental teachings of the Advent season, as Christians prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ in Bethlehem. The religious and powerful in the first century didn’t see that it was God incarnate in that small baby crying in the stable next to the inn. The religious and the powerful didn’t see that it was God incarnate in the itinerant carpenter’s son turned preacher from Nazareth. In fact, the religious and the powerful found the way he challenged accepted beliefs and practices, found the very people he spent time with, so unsettling that they conspired to torture and kill him.
If we remember this truth, every single one of us will hopefully take a moment in this season to pause and reflect. Because missing the coming of Christ in the child Jesus was not just an historical accident. It is something Jesus himself warned that religious people would continue to do. At the last judgment, when the Lord sends the accursed to eternal fire, he is very clear about why, “Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’” (Matthew 25:44–45)
Jesus is saying that when we see someone who is hungry or thirsty, we are seeing Christ himself. When we see someone naked or sick, we are seeing Christ himself. And, even more troubling perhaps for American Christians who like their Jesus respectable, when we see someone in prison, we are seeing Christ himself. And when we see someone who is a stranger – the Greek word being xenos, literally meaning foreigner and the same word from which we get xenophobia – we are seeing Christ himself. What we do for someone in any of these situations is an action done to our Lord Christ.
When we wrestle honestly with this verse, we will have to acknowledge that there are many times Christ has come to us and, like the singer in the song, “We didn’t know it was you.”
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| Everett Patterson’s picture, called “Jose y Maria,” reimagines the Holy Family in contemporary times. |
They also look tremendously easy to ignore.
Advent is a beautiful time of the year, a time of traditions and a growing sense of joy. It’s a time when people are often moved to give generously of their time and treasure to those who are in need. I’d encourage you, though, during this season to take it one step further. Spend some time in self-examination and ask where you may be blind to the presence of Jesus in this world.
Who is the hungry person whose causes you to avert your eyes? Who is the person struggling with serious health issues while our country fails to create meaningful change in a broken health care system? Who is the person in prison, wishing someone cared and that they didn’t just feel like they had been warehoused by society and forgetting? Who is the immigrant, living in constant fear because the only choice was a dangerous journey to live undocumented in America or certain poverty or even death back home?
Maybe you have trouble seeing Jesus in that liberal priest who writes those columns that annoy you. I know I’m broken and can be mistaken, but can you see that I’m trying?
I know I sometimes have trouble seeing Jesus in people with whom I disagree, but I try to let God’s grace continue to challenge me in that area. Maybe you can, too?
Each person, no matter what, carries inherent dignity and worth with the image of God pressed into their very soul. And each person you meet this Advent season is an opportunity for you to see Jesus in a new way, and find yourself changed in the process.
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