Let us turn now to the story. A child is
born in an obscure village. He is brought
up in another obscure village. He works
in a carpenter shop until he is thirty, and
then for three brief years is an itinerant
preacher, proclaiming a message and
living a life. He never writes a book. He
never holds an office. He never raises an
army. He never has a family of his own.
He never owns a home. He never goes
to college. He never travels two hundred
miles from the place where he was born.
He gathers a little group of friends about
him and teaches them his way of life.
While still a young man, the tide of popular
feeling turns against him. One denies him;
another betrays him. He is turned over to
his enemies. He goes through the mockery
of a trial; he is nailed to a cross between
two thieves, and when dead is laid in a

borrowed grave by the kindness of a friend.
Those are the facts of his human life.
He rises from the dead. Today we look
back across nineteen hundred years and
ask, What kind of trail has he left across
the centuries? When we try to sum up his
influence, all the armies that ever marched,
all the parliaments that ever sat, all the
kings that ever reigned are absolutely
picayune in their influence on mankind
compared with that of this one solitary
life…

(Editor’s note: We understand that this is the original essay by Dr. James Allan Francis as published in “The Real Jesus and Other Sermons” © 1926 by the Judson Press of Philadelphia. If you have seen it before, you already know its power and its message. If you are reading it for the first time, we hope that it will serve as an inspiration and a reminder that Jesus is the reason we celebrate at Christmas time.)