The Rebel Jesus

This sto­ry was first pub­lished in December 2021.

I grew up lis­ten­ing to my par­ents’ Christmas albums from the 1960s and ear­li­er. And I am prone to wax nostalgic. 

So it’s not a shock­er that among my all-time favorites are such clas­sics as Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” and Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song.” Other favorites include the entire Vince Guaraldi sound­track to A Charlie Brown Christmas, the Barenaked Ladies med­ley of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/We Three Kings,” “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” by John Lennon, et. al., and “Peace on Earth/The Little Drummer Boy” by Bing Crosby and David Bowie. Also on heavy rota­tion in my house at this time of year is the album When My Heart Finds Christmas by Harry Connick, Jr. and his smok­ing jazz band.

But if I had to pick just one favorite Christmas song, it might be a lit­tle-known 1991 record­ing by Jackson Browne and the Irish band The Chieftains. From the album The Bells of Dublin, the song writ­ten and sung by Browne, is called “The Rebel Jesus.”

Lots of Christians speak of hav­ing a “per­son­al rela­tion­ship with Jesus.” So did I, for most of my life. At some point, I came to the con­clu­sion that who­ev­er the man Jesus of Nazareth was, he was not a god and he is no longer liv­ing in the sense we usu­al­ly mean. 

But even an agnos­tic such as I can­not deny that there is a sense in which the mor­tal Jesus is in fact immor­tal. Nearly 2,000 years since his death, his name is known to bil­lions of humans. There is no deny­ing that his impact on much of human­i­ty is greater today than it’s ever been or ever could have been dur­ing his brief life on Earth. 

And in a way, I still have a rela­tion­ship with Jesus. As the kids say these days, my rela­tion­ship with Jesus is... complicated.

As I said, I once called him Lord and Savior. I no longer do that, but my respect for him as a sage has not dimin­ished. If any­thing, see­ing him as “mere­ly” human has increased my respect and admiration. 

But who was Jesus, real­ly? What was he like? What did he believe? What did he teach his followers? 

What about his appear­ance? Obviously, we have no idea, but we can be cer­tain he looked noth­ing like the Medieval European painters por­trayed him: a tall, light-skinned, blue-eyed man. 

I’ve spent far too much time and ener­gy try­ing to fig­ure out who Jesus the human real­ly was. Lately, I’ve giv­en up on this task and set­tled on a new paradigm.

I believe it is impos­si­ble to know for sure what he taught and what he did. There just isn’t any sol­id his­tor­i­cal data to sup­port most of what is writ­ten about him in Biblical and extra-Biblical writ­ings. And even what is writ­ten in the canon­i­cal gospels and epis­tles of the New Testament is self-con­tra­dic­to­ry regard­ing many facets of his life and teachings.

It’s been my obser­va­tion that most peo­ple tend to believe in a Jesus made in their own image. And I’ve final­ly decid­ed that there’s noth­ing wrong with that, as long as we are hon­est about it. So I ful­ly admit that the Jesus I believe in is my own pur­pose-built con­struct. I believe in the Rebel Jesus. 

The Rebel Jesus

The Rebel Jesus is more inter­est­ed in how we treat each oth­er than what we pro­fess to believe. 

The Rebel Jesus would rather hang out with poor, dirty, mis­cre­ants than self-right­eous bigots. 

The Rebel Jesus ques­tions author­i­ty, tra­di­tion, and ensconced insti­tu­tions of power—and clings to that which is hum­ble and authentic.

The Rebel Jesus would not be wel­come in most churches. 

The Rebel Jesus does­n’t care as much about your per­son­al lib­er­ty or your piety as much as your humil­i­ty and your com­pas­sion for oth­er humans.

The Rebel Jesus appre­ci­ates those who give to the poor, but he also wants them to ques­tion why pover­ty exists. 

The Rebel Jesus is a heal­er who can’t under­stand why heal­ing isn’t avail­able to all.

The Rebel Jesus under­stands that every human life has val­ue: he cares not about your age, gen­der, race, eth­nic­i­ty, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, reli­gion, nation­al­i­ty, wealth, or social sta­tus. He loves you where you are and as you are.

The Rebel Jesus knows that it’s not enough to be “col­or blind.” We must acknowl­edge and cel­e­brate our diversity—and work to ensure that every­one is giv­en equal access to the bless­ings of life. We must iden­ti­fy and elim­i­nate all bar­ri­ers to achiev­ing that lofty goal.

In short, the Rebel Jesus is a social jus­tice warrior.

But back to the song.

Its seri­ous, haunt­ing Irish melody and instru­men­ta­tion are a per­fect match for Browne’s poignant lyrics. He describes a Jesus that close­ly resem­bles my own image of the Rebel Jesus. And it adds a stern crit­i­cism of some of those who claim his name but miss his mark.

Yet Browne ends the song with a gen­er­ous clos­ing that acknowl­edges the human­i­ty of even those he dis­agrees with.

I echo Jackson Browne’s sentiments. 

On this Christmas Eve, I bid you peace, joy, con­tent­ment, and much happiness—no mat­ter what your beliefs are.