10/27/08

One Solitary Life

One Solitary Life is a poem adapted, it is believe, from a 1926 sermon by a pastor named James Allen Francis, although attribution is sometimes given as "unknown."





"One Solitary Life"


He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant.
He grew up in another village, where He worked as a carpenter until He was 30.
Then, for three years, He was an itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He never had a family or owned a home.
He didn't go to college.
He never lived in a big city.
He never traveled 200 miles from the place where He was born.
He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness.
He had no credentials but Hmself.
He was only 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against Him.
His friends ran away.
One of them denied Him.
One of them even 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 He was dying, his executioners gambled for His garments, 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. I am well within the mark when I say that 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.

1 comments:

Peg said...

This is beautiful. I had a set of Christmas cards with this verse written inside. You'd be hard pressed to find cards with true, Christmas meaning in them.