Does this count as a Christmas thought?
I’m going to quote John Ruskin again, from his 4 essays titled as a group “Unto This Last.”
He is talking about the great value of justice.
The mistake of the best men through generation after generation, has been that great one of thinking to help the poor by almsgiving, and by preaching of patience or of hope, and by every other means, emollient or consolatory, except the one thing which God orders for them, justice.
Unfortunately, justice is something few want to hear seriously about.
But this justice, with its accompanying holiness or helpfulness, being even by the best men denied … is by the mass of men hated wherever it appears.
Then he brings out the impact upon Jesus of his insisting on justice.
So that, when the choice was one day fairly put to them, they denied the Helpful One and the Just; and desired a murderer, sedition-raiser, and robber, to be granted to them; — the murderer
instead of the Lord of Life, the sedition-raiser
instead of the Prince of Peace, and the robber
instead of the Just Judge of all the world.
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