It was winter of my 5th grade. A cold Chicago day found me bundled up and sitting in church, more attuned to the stained glass windows beside me than the preacher in front of me. Sixty-four years later finds me still intrigued by the “stained glass window meaning” I discovered that elementary school day. With regret, I realize the message I for decades have cherished is, unfortunately, unseen by today’s youth, whose churches no longer are adorned with stained glass window.
Bible stories were picture book told through stained glass windows. Long before my eyes could read, pictures radiating from stained glass windows taught me about God, His will, His way and people who belonged to Him. My favorite window was God’s Son sacrificed on the cross. In truth, before that day way back in 5th grade, not meaning but, rather, its intricate multicolored pane (not the pain of Jesus nailed to a cross) made it my favorite. However, deeper perception, truth and meaning shone through the Crucifixion window on that 5th grade moment, a very long time ago.
Allow me to dig deeper into my elementary school stained glass memory. Neither on that day, nor now, do I have a clue about the sermon being preached. However, I will never forget the lesson I learned. When you look at a stained glass window, what do you see — a finished picture, or, of what the picture is composed? The completed scene offers deep breaths of beauty. Meditation on its components might just take your breath away.
Let’s focus on my childhood favorite, Christ crucified, and what my eyes saw and my soul witnessed that 5th grade day. To me, nothing was more brilliant than sunlight flowing through the scene of Christ dying on the cross. That was until my vision turned from sunlight to SON making right.
Stained glass achieves the reality of a picture from tiny pieces joined in proximity to produce a unified depiction. So, let’s decipher the tiny pieces which, when joined together, produced the crucifixion. Were they sole flecks that shimmered when sun shone through them or blemished specks taking on eternal life through the soul light of the SON? What, or more appropriately who, was the composition of Christ’s death that day on Calvary and every day thereafter? The answer is both you and me.
Next time, if blessed to find a stained glass mirror of Christ dying for all of mankind, may we all not stand in awe of this work of art but, rather, kneel down in recognition of ourselves as the integral pieces whose speckled sins when joined together, truly, form the vision of Christ dying on His (more accurately, OUR) cross.
“He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24 (NIV)
Uplifted in a Broken Down World 