Moore
The week of Christmas is here. In a few days, we’ll be celebrating with family members once again.
Everyone’s favorite foods will be on the tables, brightly lighted trees can be seen all over town, gaily wrapped packages can be found under the trees and small children anxiously await the arrival of a sleigh full of new toys
The Christmas cantatas have been presented by the churches and Christmas magic is in the air.
As we celebrate this Holy Season, let’s remember those who have lost loved ones this year, those who have a loved one deployed with the military and those who are sick or alone. While we enjoy all the frivolous things associated with Christmas, let’s not forget the true meaning the holiday.
We always enjoy reading the account of the birth of Jesus. My favorite is still the account found in Luke in the King James Bible.
But I would like to share with you a beautiful essay, adapted from a sermon by Dr. James Allan Francis in 1926. This pretty much sums up our feelings of the Christmas story.
“He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in still another village, where he worked in a carpenter shop until he was thirty, 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 house. He didn’t go to college. He never visited a big city.
“He never travelled two hundred miles from the place he was born. He did none of the things one usually associates with greatness. He had no credentials but himself. He was only thirty-three when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away,
“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 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, and today he is the central figure of the human race and the leader of mankind’s progress. 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.”
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!
Fannie Moore is a journalist who lives in Shongaloo where she enjoys writing on a variety of subjects.