One Solitary Life

Lest we not forget
He is still the reason for the season.
Always will be.

Singing about a Man
Who was a Baby,
Who became a Boy
Who became a Man.

Born in an obscure village.
The Child of a peasant woman.
He actually grew up in another village where He worked 
in a carpenter shop until He was thirty.
And for three years, He was an itinerant preacher.

He never owned a home.
Never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He never really had a family of His own.

Never went to college.
Never set foot in a big city.
He never traveled 200 miles from the place He was born.
He never did 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.
Even one of His best friends 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 this earth and that was His coat.

And 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 still the centerpiece of the human race, and leader of the column of progress.
I’m far within the mark when I say that all the armies that were ever marched, all the navy's that were ever built, all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, all put together, have not affected the lives on this Earth as powerfully, as has that

ONE SOLITARY LIFE.

THE GOOD NEWS IS, HE IS ALIVE
& ALL IS WELL.
(adapted from an essay by Dr. James Allan Francis)