I am posting a paragraph a day, for the next twelve days, from Dorothy Sayers‘ essay “The Greatest Drama Ever Staged.” My own little Twelve Days of Christmas. Because it’s a apt musing for the Christmas season. And I think she whimsically and winsomely addresses the snarky attacks that Jesus and his way, Christianity, regularly receive. You click here for the first post or here for the entire essay.

If this is dull, then what, in Heaven’s name, is worthy to be called exciting? The people who hanged Christ never, to do them justice, accused him of being a bore—on the contrary, they thought him too dynamic to be safe. It has been left for later generations to muffle up that shattering personality and surround him with an atmosphere of tedium. We have very efficiently pared the claws of the Lion of Judah, certified him “meek and mild,” and recommended him as a fitting household pet for pale curates and pious old ladies. To those who knew him, however, he in no way suggests a milk-and-water person; they objected to him as a dangerous firebrand.