"One Solitary Life"

Here is a man who was born in an obscure village as the child of a peasant woman.

He grew up in another obscure village.

He worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty and then for three years was an itinerant preacher.

Merry Christmas!

He never wrote a book.

He never held an office.

He never owned a home.

He never had a family.

He never went to college.

He never put his foot inside a big city.

He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where he was born.

He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness.

He had no credentials but himself.

He had nothing to do with this world except the naked power of his divine manhood.

While still a young man the tide of popular opinion turned against him.

His friends ran away.

One of them denied him.

Another betrayed him.

He was turned over to his enemies.

He went through the mockery of a trial.

He was nailed upon the cross between two thieves.

His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth while he was dying, and that was his coat.

When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.*

Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone and today he is the center of the human race and the leader of the column of progress.

I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that were ever built, and all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon the earth as powerfully as has this one solitary life.

• by Dr. James Allan Francis © 1926.

*The most important part of the story is missing from this sermon text of July 11, 1926. What is that most important missing part? It turns out even the grave could not hold this man Jesus (actually, fully man and fully God), as He was resurrected from the dead on the third day, now sits at the right hand of God the Father, and will return one day to judge both the living and the dead even as He makes all things right and new again. Read all about it from the very beginning (from eternity past) to its exciting conclusion (into eternity future) in the best selling book of all time - The Bible. And "that's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."