COMMENTARY
Each era depicts Jesus in its own way, and the late historian Jaroslav Pelikan wove a brilliant book around this theme. He traced images of Jesus from the earliest days of Christianity as "the rabbi" and "the king of kings" to more modern portrayals as "the teacher of common sense," "the poet of the spirit" and "the liberator."
The Jesus of Christmas, Pelikan tells us in "Jesus Through the Centuries," owes a particular debt to Saint Francis of Assisi, who preached "a new and deeper awareness of the humanity of Christ, as disclosed in his nativity and in his sufferings."