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(This post was written prior to 2016, in a blog entitled “Jubal’s Jottings.”)
Through a gracious invitation, I attended the Candlelight Ceremony at Disneyland…yes, the home of Mickey and Minnie! It was a grand event in the style and standard of excellence that you would expect from a Disney production…right down to the classy ushers. The stage was well laid out and ready for the program…the lights were tested…mics in place…again, just as you would expect from Disneyland. Jon Voight came to the lectern to serve as narrator. His first words were something to the effect that secular society had turned Christmas into something it wasn’t. Christmas is about Christ and His birth. He proceeded throughout the program to read directly from the Gospel of Luke…the Christmas story. It was intermixed with Christmas carols that were familiar to all. The words “God,” “Jesus,” and “Christ” were mentioned liberally during the evening…perhaps more than some churches will do in their attempt to make the message of the season palatable to all! In all of our “cultural sensitivity,” have we turned Christmas into something other than Christmas…and Disneyland has to do the world a favor by keeping that message pure and simple? Maybe so…
So Jubal, you would have approved of the program. Those herald trumpet players up on top of the Disneyland train station were blowing in the cold wind, but nailed every note! You would have been impressed!
They ended the program with the reading of the James Allan Francis poem, “One Solitary Life.” If you haven’t seen this, or it has been a long time, here is “One Solitary Life.”
One Solitary Life
He was born in an obscure village
The child of a peasant woman
He grew up in another obscure village
Where he worked in a carpenter shop
Until he was thirty when public opinion turned against him
He never wrote a book
He never held an office
He never went to college
He never visited a big city
He never travelled more than two hundred miles
From the place where he was born
He did none of the things
Usually associated with greatness
He had no credentials but himself
He was only thirty three
His friends ran away
One of them denied 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 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 Jesus is the central figure of the human race
And the leader of mankind’s progress
All the armies that have ever marched
All the navies that have ever sailed
All the parliaments that have ever sat
All the kings that ever reigned put together
Have not affected the life of mankind on earth
As powerfully as that one solitary life
Dr. James Allan Francis © 1926.