The following narrative, adapted from a sermon by Dr. James Allan Francis in 1926, has traveled the world in book, periodical and journalistic form as well as having been narrated countless times. Believing this work remains powerful and unique after 86 years of retelling, we offer it to you today as an appropriate universal message of peace, love, sacrifice, mercy, forgiveness and hope for humanity.
Born in an obscure village, the son of a peasant woman, he grew up inanother village, where he worked in a carpenter's shop until he was thirty. Then for three years he became a wandering preacher.
He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family or owned a house. He didn't go to college. He never visited a big city. He never travelled two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He did none of those things one usually associates with greatness.
He had no credentials but himself.He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. He was turned over to his enemies and went through a mockery of a trial. He was executed by the state. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his clothing, the only property he had on earth.
When he was dead he was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race and the leader of mankind's progress.
All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man on this earth as much as that One Solitary Life.
Bibliographic Reference: “The Real Jesus and Other Sermons” © 1926 by the Judson Press of Philadelphia (pp 123-124 titled “Arise Sir Knight!”)
No comments:
Post a Comment