One Solitary Life

He was born in an obscure village,
The child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in another obscure village,
where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office.
He never went to college.  He never visited a big city.
He never traveled more than two hundred miles
from the place where he was born.
He did none of the things usually associated with greatness.
He had no credentials but himself.

He was only thirty three years old
when the tide of popularity turned against him.

His friends ran away.
One of them denied him. One of them betrayed him.
He was turned over to his enemies
and went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed to a cross between two thieves.
While 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.

Nineteen centuries have come and gone.
Still Jesus is the central figure of the human race
and the leader of mankind’s progress.
All the armies that have ever marched,
all the navies that have ever sailed,
all the parliaments that have ever sat,
all the kings that ever reigned
PUT TOGETHER
Have not affected the life of mankind on earth
as powerfully as that one solitary life.

(Adapted from an essay by Dr. James Allen Frances, from “The Real Jesus and Other Sermons” published in 1926.)

There is a powerful book called, “What if Jesus Had Never Been Born” written by Dr. D. James Kennedy.  This is a book worth reading.  He outlines the impact that this one solitary life has had on things such as the value of human life, compassion for the poor, education, freedom, science, economics, the family, health & medicine, and art & music.  There is no doubt that were it not for the power of the life and teaching of Christ, this world would be still ruled by darkness, superstition and fear.

Today, the world celebrates Jesus’ resurrection.  As we celebrate that miraculous event, let us not just celebrate it as a moment in the past, but as the power that transforms our present.  Let us continue the world changing power that believers in the past have demonstrated.  There are still good works needing to be done by you and me today.