Now think with me about how, on that first Christmas Eve, Jesus beganhis life journey\u201d\u00a6as an outsider.<\/p>\n
\u00f4\u20ac\u20ac\u0081 Jesus was an outsider politically. He had to flee from Herod. Within a year of his birth, he was a refugee in Egypt.<\/p>\n
\u00f4\u20ac\u20ac\u0081 Jesus was an outsider to his own family. Despite his mother\u2019s devotion, his brothers and sisters never seemed to have understood him. At times during his ministry they even thought he had gone mad.<\/p>\n
\u00f4\u20ac\u20ac\u0081 Jesus was an outsider to his townsfolk. The people of Nazareth accepted him \u201d\u201c yes, when he was the carpenter\u2019s son. But when his ministry began, they all but threw him off the cliff for his \u201cpretentious\u201d\u009d messianic airs.<\/p>\n
\u00f4\u20ac\u20ac\u0081 Jesus was an outsider to the religious leaders. He had no formal theological training, nor did he have a proper school of educated disciples. His band of followers was riff raff from the boondocks up in Galilee.<\/p>\n
\u00f4\u20ac\u20ac\u0081 And Jesus was an outsider to the Romans. They saw him as a menace to the peace they had brokered with the Sanhedrin. For all they knew Jesus was a zealot, secretly plotting a revolt against them.<\/p>\n