Among the first things said to me after arriving at this church was, “Troy, every pastor has done a series on our stained glass.” Now, I’m not a particularly rebellious person, but there’s a part of me that really doesn’t like being told that I have to do something. So, when I got that information, my first thought was, “Note taken. But I’m going to be the first not to do a series on this. Surely everything that can be said about these windows has been said.”
But I had a change of heart last spring. Several of us have been doing group spiritual direction with Michelle Olson, just like you experienced as part of worship today. I think it was March when she had our group come to this sanctuary, walk around, and ask God’s Spirit to direct our attention to one of the windows.
So, we did. Four of us were giving our attention to these windows, seeing what drew our us in. Pretty quickly my focus went to the window on the east side of the chancel, depicting Jesus saying, “I am the Vine.” I was surprised. This is the window I get the most exposure to on a Sunday morning because it’s directly across from where the pastors sit.
But I realized I had never really gazed at the window. I never meditated on it. All of my looks were in passing — little snippets of things that caught my eye but not my prayerful concentration. So, I opened myself up to God’s leading as I meditated on all that is happening in that window, and it was like heaven opened. There was so much going on. So many aspects of it piqued my interest. By the time our group talked about our windows, I found myself overflowing with interest and wonder.
As we finished, I turned to Kristine and said, “Well, it’s finally time that we preach the windows.” So, that’s what we’re doing.
But I want to take a bit of a different angle on the windows. Many of the sermons I’ve read on them have dived into the Bible stories depicted on the windows, and we’ll do that. Many of them focused on how the art tied these stories together around a particular theological morsel, and we’ll do that too. But I’d like to go a little deeper inside each of us as we do this. I want us to seek to hear what the Spirit is saying to us as individuals and as a community through dwelling on these beautiful windows. I’d like to see how the Spirit uses this beautiful art to stir our souls into deep places that we might not have even known existed within us.
How are we going to do this? Well, you’ve experienced a bit of this already in how Michelle guided us through visio divina. We do not have ample time in the course of worship to do this deeply, so today was simply a foretaste of what you could experience. Starting this Wednesday at noon, we’ll have weekly group spiritual direction where we have a chance to meditate on the upcoming Sunday’s window. We’ll run these until Thanksgiving. They are an opportunity for us to listen to God’s Spirit as it speaks into our hearts and lives through these windows that surround us week after week in worship. This will give us time to dwell on the window, and then when we come to worship that next Sunday, you’ll get a second opportunity to focus on it as one of the pastors offers their interpretation of the window.
What we’re asking you to do is pay attention. We are surrounded by the glory of God all the time, if only we’d pay attention to it. I suspect most of us know these windows are beautiful and meaningful, but I also know that they quickly just fade into the background. We stop paying attention to them. And what’s particularly great about this series is that these windows aren’t going anywhere. My hope for you is that your gaze falls on one of these at some point months or years from now, and the Spirit stirs something within your heart that recalls a message you received or a calling you had because of this time.
Today we’ll focus on the window you likely see the most, although it’s often partially blocked by the screen. It’s the chancel window, and it focuses on Jesus’ resurrection.
Before I go into this window, I think it’s important to know a little of the background of this sanctuary and of these windows. So, let’s start there. This church was founded in 1836 by the Rev. William Ferry (who is depicted in the windows, by the way). It first met down on the corner of Harbor and Washington, but later moved to the 200 block of Washington. In 1881, the church was in financial trouble, and so the congregation sold its property to the lender in exchange for the land we’re on today. They built a sanctuary that used to be on the corner of Fifth and Franklin, but as the church outgrew its building, they decided it was time to build a new sanctuary.
On July 4, 1954, the church broke ground for the new sanctuary, which was dedicated on December 18, 1955. Part of the plan for this new sanctuary included all of the stained glass you see today. The were designed by the Willet Studios of Philadelphia. The primary designer of that studio was Henry Lee Willet. This past week I found an article in a 1937 issue of Time Magazine about him, describing him like this.
“He is a Presbyterian elder, recently persuaded by the Presbytery of Philadelphia North to establish a committee of social action….Despite his businesslike attitude and despite having produced several of the best examples of medieval stained-glass humor in the U.S., Willet has very serious theories on window designing, which he regards nearer to music than painting.”
These windows are the work of an entire studio, not just one person, and I found that this team also included Odell “Billie” Prather, a female artist who had a long career in stained glass, sculpture, and painting. Looking around this sanctuary, it is clear that this studio was steeped in the scriptures and also excellent in their craft. These windows are compelling and beautiful.
If this church were built even a decade later, I’ve often had the thought that there would be no stained glass here. Why? I looked into how much these windows cost in 1955. The chancel window was $7,500, which is $90,000 today. The back window was $6,000, or $72,000 today. Side windows were $2,500 apiece, around $30,000 today, and there are 11 of them. All of this stained glass in today’s dollars would approach $700,000, and that’s assuming that stained glass has only kept up with inflation rather than outpacing it.
Could you imagine if session presented a capital campaign today seeking over $700,000 for windows alone? I suspect most of you would not be opening your checkbooks immediately wondering how much you could give to this.
So, be thankful that we have these treasured works of art that are meant to elevate our spirits and inspire our faith. They’re a gift to the church from our predecessors, and we would do well to take time to lean into them and see how God is continuing to speak to us through them today.
I’m going to devote the rest of my time to reflecting on the chancel window. Because there’s so much going on in it, I want to take a couple of minutes to describe it. The centerpiece of this window is the resurrected Christ. As I said a couple of weeks ago when I preached on death and eternal life, the resurrection is the heart of our faith, so it’s appropriate that Jesus raised from the dead is the first thing our eyes are drawn to when we enter the sanctuary. The upper half of the window is devoted to this. There we see Jesus surrounded by six angels declaring “He is risen,” a seventh holding the stone removed from the tomb, and two more preparing to crown the risen Jesus as king. Interestingly, the only human in the upper half is a Roman centurion, turning away from the glory of Jesus. Is he covering his face in shame for participating in the crucifixion? Is he blinded by the glory of Jesus now revealed in the resurrection? We can only wonder.
As our gaze moves down from the resurrection, we see the two sacraments — baptism and communion — depicted as both scenes from Jesus’ life but also as two means of grace by which we understand our identity as followers of Jesus. We are baptized into this identity, and every time we share in communion, as we will do in a few minutes, we are reminded that our faith is centered on Jesus, the one who died for us, rose for us, reigns in power for us, and prays for us.
In the four smaller scenes surrounding, we have notable stories that orbit around Jesus’ death and resurrection. The lower left is Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, being attended to by an angel while Peter, James, and John sleep in the background. The lower right has John walking with Jesus’ mother, Mary, away from the empty crosses, fulfilling Jesus’ wish that John become like a son to Mary. On the upper left we have the first encounter of Jesus after the resurrection. It’s Mary Magdalene meeting Jesus in the garden, mistaking him for the gardener, only to have him speak her name and restore her hope. On the upper right, it’s another post-resurrection story, where Thomas demands that he touch Jesus’ wounds in order to believe that the resurrection is real. And bordering all of this are the Greek letters Alpha and Omega, which is something we’ll tackle in another week because we have a widow devoted to it.
Today we heard the text of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, which was a foretaste of what would happen to Jesus. Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” And then he asks her — and I believe he continues to ask us — “Do you believe this?”
Do you believe this?
As I meditated on this window this week, the bold reality of our faith hit me square between the eyes.
What does it mean that heaven and earth are intertwined and that God has moved and continues to move in the world today? Are we like the centurion who cannot bear to look at what God is doing? Are we frightened about how God is at work? Do we feel unworthy of serving the risen and reigning Christ?
Do we believe this?
What does it mean that Jesus is reigning even now? As the great Isaac Watts’ hymn says,
Jesus shall reign where’er the sun
does its successive journeys run,
his kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
till moons shall wax and wane no more.
It’s one thing to sing this or to say these words, but does our faith hold fast when things in our life make it seem like this isn’t true? When we lose a job or receive a bad diagnosis? When it seems like the world is filled with wanton, unending violence? When the powerful assert control over the weak? Can we come to church and see the risen King Jesus reigning, and then go back into the world striving to live out that truth?
Do we believe this?
Friends, ours is a resurrection faith. This window puts this reality in plain sight for us. And it stands as a steadfast reminder that the very bedrock of our faith is this truth.
So, today and in the days to come, I invite all of us to give holy attention to these windows, and then to turn our gaze to the world around us. God is at work — in you, in me. Sometimes we just need faith to train our eyes to see, and to learn how to pay attention.