Jesu Swami Daruwane

Alleluia…
Alleluia…
Jesus, Lord, the child…

Born in a poor man’s hut,
born into this world,
is your teaching still to be found?
Look now with your divine eyes

While poor children cry with great hunger in the hut,
there is a party in a mansion, on sweet Christmas
that, my Lord, is not the teaching you preached
Golgotha’s hill of the cross, soaked in red blood

Gold and silver and gems were never near you
not fine cloth but coarse rags upon your body
why, then, all this fashion in the house of God?
Rise again from Galilee and look upon this world

This is a prophetic Christmas hymn, written by the celebrated lyricist Sunil Ariyarathne, and it does something bold: it uses the joy of Christmas to level a stinging critique at the way Christmas is often kept. It opens in praise, “Alleluia, Jesus, Lord, the child,” but immediately grounds that child in poverty, “born in a poor man’s hut, born into this world,” and then asks the question the whole song turns on: “is your teaching still to be found? Look now with your divine eyes.”

The heart of the song is a searing contrast. “While poor children cry with great hunger in the hut, there is a party in a mansion, on sweet Christmas.” The singer names this hypocrisy plainly, “that, my Lord, is not the teaching you preached,” and points to Calvary, “Golgotha’s hill soaked in red blood,” to remind the comfortable that the child in the manger grew up to die for the poor and forgotten, not to be celebrated with feasting that ignores them.

The final verse sharpens the challenge and aims it at religion itself. Christ had no “gold and silver and gems,” wore “not fine cloth but coarse rags,” so “why, then, all this fashion in the house of God?” It asks the church to look at its own wealth and display against the poverty of the one it worships. The closing line is a haunting summons, “rise again from Galilee and look upon this world,” inviting the risen Christ to survey what has been done in his name. What the listener is left with is a Christmas hymn with a conscience, one that praises the Christ-child by insisting the world actually live his teaching of love for the poor.