We’re preparing for a concert in which we’ll sing this amazing song, “‘Rebel Jesus,” which I’d love to share with you as my Friday Random Beauty offering.

The lyrics, by Jackson Browne, are amazing.  As John Nichols wrote in The Nation:  “Browne’s lyrics, world-weary and wry in their observations yet warm in their delivery, offer an ancient antidote to the dispiriting crush of commerce, the tyranny of schedules and the theft of meaning that can crowd the better angels of our nature at Christmas:”

(Below I’ll paste a link to a video of Jackson Browne singing it.)

Rebel Jesus

All the streets are filled with laughter and light

And the music of the season

And the merchants’ windows are all bright

With the faces of the children

And the families hurrying to their homes

As the sky darkens and freezes

They’ll be gathering around their hearths and tables

Giving thanks for all God’s graces

And the birth of the rebel Jesus

 

Well they call him by the prince of peace

And they call him by the savior

And they pray to him upon the seas

And in every bold endeavor

As they fill his churches with their pride and gold

And their faith in him increases

But they’ve turned the nature that I worshipped in

From a temple to a robber’s den

In the words of the rebel Jesus

 

We guard our world with locks and guns

And we guard our fine possessions

And once a year when christmas comes

We give to our relations

And perhaps we give a little to the poor

If the generosity should seize us

But if any one of us should interfere

In the business of why they are poor

They get the same as the rebel Jesus

 

But pardon me if I seem

To take the tone of judgement

For I’ve no wish to come between

This day and our enjoyment

In this life of hardship and of earthly toil

We’ve need for anything that frees us

So I bid us pleasure

And I bid us cheer

From a heathen and a pagan

On the side of the rebel jesus.

Here’s Jackson singing it:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1d0ivyTTk