You will find a baby lying in a manger.
—Luke 2:12
Walking to his one-room apartment after a midnight Christmas Eve service in New York City in 1934, Robert MacGimsey passed the open door of a pub. The raucous shouting and swearing was, he thought, an insult to him whom the season celebrated.
Back at his apartment, MacGimsey wrote an apology to the Christ child—Sweet Little Jesus Boy.
The rendition of the carol in 1955, by famed gospel singer Mahalia Jackson, put it on the charts as an all-time seasonal favorite.
Sweet little Jesus Boy —
They made you be born in a manger.
Sweet little Holy Child —
We didn’t know who you was.
Didn’t know you’d come to save us, Lord;
To take our sins away.
Our eyes was blind, we couldn’t see,
We didn’t know who you was.
In every season, Christ must be central.