Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 784 (Brief)

From Christian Quotation of the Day

He was too great for his disciples. And in view of what he plainly
said, is it any wonder that all who were rich and prosperous felt a
horror of strange things, a swimming of their world at his teaching?

Perhaps the priests and the rich men understood him better than his
followers. He was dragging out all the little private reservations
they had made from social service into the light of a universal
religious life. He was like some terrible moral huntsman digging
mankind out of the snug burrows in which they had lived hitherto.

In the white blaze of this kingdom of his there was to be no property,
no privilege, no pride and precedence; no motive indeed and no reward
but love. Is it any wonder that men were dazzled and blinded and cried
out against him? Even his disciples cried out when he would not spare
them the light.

Is it any wonder that the priests realized that between this man and
themselves there was no choice but that he or priestcraft should
perish? Is it any wonder that the Roman soldiers, confronted and
amazed by something soaring over their comprehension and threatening
all their disciplines, should take refuge in wild laughter, and crown
him with thorns and robe him in purple and make a mock Caesar of him?

For to take him seriously was to enter upon a strange and alarming
life, to abandon habits, to control instincts and impulses, to essay an
incredible happiness… Is it any wonder that to this day this
Galilean is too much for our small hearts?

… H. G. Wells, The Outline of History [1920]

CQOD Compilation Copyright 1999, Robert McAnally Adams, Curator
CQOD Home Page: http://www.gospelcom.net/cqod/
CQOD Subscription info: http://www.gospelcom.net/cqod/cqodlist.htm