Jesus and Failure, by Moishe Rosen

"Jesus was a failure as the world sees things. Thousands came to hear him and were enthralled with his message but at the end only dozens remained and that included his mother and siblings. His meteoric rise to popularity began when he was thirty and he was a 'has been' three years later. The triumphal entry might be seen as his comeback trail. He was a gifted communicator and one can imagine that he was thought to lose his cool when he called the religious leaders of his time "whited sepulchers and vipers". Some might have thought he went off the deep end when he was not received after the 'triumphal entry' and he entered the temple to deal violently with the money changers and sheep sellers. As a celebrity, he as on a downward path so far as popularity was concerned.

"But he was not a failure because people failed to see who he was and what was being offered. His way of dealing with rejection was not to accommodate himself to what the people could regard as being a politically wise ruler. He was true to himself and to his principles but most of all he was true to Calvary which was to be his Coronation and Victory."

from "The Fact of Failure", Seventh International LCJE Conference, Helsinki, Finland, 2003. Moishe Rosen is the founder of Jews for Jesus. In honor of his passing to be with the Lord, May 19, 2010.