Jesus Christ is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty. Then for three years he became an itinerant preacher.

He never owned a home, never wrote a book, never held an office. He never had a family, never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never travelled two hundred miles from the place he was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness, 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.

Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today he is a centre piece of the human race, leader of the vision 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.

adapted from a sermon by Dr James Allan Francis, Judson Press of Philadelphia

Come Lord Jesus