Here
is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant
woman. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was 30. Then for three
years, He was an itinerant preacher.
He never owned a home. He
never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He
never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never
traveled 200 miles from the place He was born. He never did one of the
things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but
Himself.
While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion
turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was
turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He
was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While He was dying, His
executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth —
His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the
pity of a friend.
[Twenty] long centuries have come and gone, and
today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of
progress.
I am far within the mark when I say that all the
armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the
parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put
together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as
powerfully as has that one solitary life.
—
This excerpt is from a sermon by Dr. James Allan Francis in "The Real
Jesus and Other Sermons," a collection published in 1926 by the Judson
Press of Philadelphia.