The Songs Tell the Story: A Family Advent DevotionalParaugs

The Song about the Boy We Sometimes Forget

“Sweet Little Jesus Boy” is a spiritual, written in the language of an ex-slave. The words don’t use perfect grammar, but they do use perfect truth.

American Robert MacGimsey was walking around New York City on Christmas Eve in 1934. He passed by one noisy bar or nightclub after another. There was a lot of loud music and a lot of Christmas celebrations, but none of the sounds he heard had anything to do with the true meaning of Christmas.

In fact, Robert MacGimsey found himself apologizing to Jesus because he realized he often left Jesus out of his celebration too.

American slaves were often mistreated, ignored, or considered unimportant. So was Jesus. He was born in a manger because no one wanted to give up their space at the inn. The people didn’t know who Jesus was.

Those people in Bethlehem didn’t know that the baby born to Mary that night was the Son of God. They didn’t know Jesus had been born to take all our sins away. The song says they were blind and couldn’t see because they didn’t know who Jesus really was.

The great depth of “Sweet Little Jesus Boy” is that the song wasn’t just written about those people in Bethlehem. It wasn’t just that Jesus was mistreated by the people of his day.

The song is also about the fact that Jesus is still being mistreated by people every day.

Have you become so busy you’ve forgotten about Jesus today?

Have you listened to and sung songs, or celebrated and been interested in things, that have nothing to do with Jesus?

All of us have.

We still mistreat Jesus sometimes, too.

But, one thing has changed.

We do know who Jesus was, is, and always will be.

The baby who was ignored in Bethlehem is honored and glorified today. We know who Jesus is and we know who he was.

Let’s all do a better job with the way we celebrate his birthday!