At Home – by Rudy Gray

Back in 1971, I was a freshman at Anderson University. My New Testament survey text was entitled “The Heart of the New Testament” by H.I. Hester. William Tisdale was my professor. I am positive that I did not take as much from that course as I should have.

Rudy Gray

However, on page nine of that book was an extended quotation that touched my heart then and continues to be one of my favorites today. I read it every Christmas. I wanted to share it with the readers of the Courier. May God bless you with a Christ-focused attitude that sees Christmas as a great opportunity to be His witness. The author of the writing cited below is unknown.

“Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a woman who, to her peasant neighbors, was just one of them and one with them. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until he was 30, and then, for three years, he was an itinerant preacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put his feet inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself.

“While still a young man, the tide of private opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. As he was dying, his executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth, and that was his coat. When he was dead he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

“Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone, and today He is the centerpiece of the human race, the leader of the column of progress.

“I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that every marched, and all the navies that were ever built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together have not affected the life of man upon this earth as has that One Solitary Life!”

May God bless us and make us a blessing this season and this year – for His glory and our ultimate good.