House Beautiful

We’ve come a long way, haven’t we, since the Puritans trashed the glorious medieval churches of England and Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Henry VIII ordered the dissolution of the monasteries, melting down altarware and images, largely to enrich the civil treasury. Under Oliver Cromwell, though, illuminated manuscripts were burned and stained glass windows were smashed - not to enrich the state, or even to pad the meager earnings of the men-at-arms - but from a belief that such things were actually offensive to God. I looked up the Puritans, and Cromwell, to see what they had to say about the adornment of churches, and found this from the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church: “[Cromwell] exercised his influence on behalf of the Independents against the rigid intolerance of the Presbyterians.”

“Not good,” I thought. “This is not going to give me a handle on which to hang a sermon affirming the dressing of our sanctuary for the glory of God and the inspiration of God’s people.” And what makes it worse is that I just recently preached a sermon on valuing tradition, on respecting what our ancestors believed in and fought for. Am I going to change my tune because I’m grinding a different axe? Not that an axe-grinder’s wheel is particularly tuneful.

So what is it that we are doing here today? We're dedicating a new stained glass window. We are adorning the sanctuary to honor God and bless his people. But what does the Bible have to say about what we are doing here today?

We know just as clearly as Solomon did that God does not live in a house made with human hands. And yet Solomon brought the finest materials and the most gifted craftsmen together, to build a holy place that would speak to the people of the glory of God. We, too, want to worship God by offering beauty to adorn this sacred space. But we also know that YHWH God was present in the temple in Jerusalem in a way very different from his presence among us today.

The Book of Worship of the P.C.U.S.A. says it best, I think:

“Wherever Christ is present among us in the interpretation of the Word and the breaking of the bread, that space is hallowed.... It is the presence of the risen Lord in the midst of the community which marks the reality of worship.... The Reformed heritage has called upon people to bring to their worship material offerings which in their simplicity of form and function direct attention to what God has done... the people of God have responded through creative expressions in architecture... vestments... music; when these artistic creations awaken us to God’s presence, they are appropriate for worship.”

By all criteria, then, this window speaks both to the reality that Christ is truly present in the lives and worship of the community of faith, and to the suitability of this window, in its simple beauty, as an expression of faith.

It is a memorial window. In it we remember and celebrate the faith and the faithfulness of Frederic and Marjorie Ferrell, their families’ history among us. In it they speak to us of the light of Christ, and the transforming power of the Holy Spirit among us. Together they remind us of the cloud of witnesses, all those saints who are our history and our heritage, whose lives illuminate ours even as the sun shining through this window fills the sanctuary with color. It is a memorial window, and so we look back to those who have gone before.

And yet it is also a Resurrection window, a Pentecost window. And so we look forward. We look forward to the continuing reality of the resurrected Christ in our midst, the promised presence of the Holy Spirit, and the certain knowledge that God’s grace and provision go before us, preparing our path for us as we continue the work he begun in our fathers and mothers, our parents and grandparents, and all those whose work and witness we remember here today.

Eternal God, you are high and holy, too great to be contained in a single building. We know that your glory is not confined to this space, or adequately expressed by this window. And yet we ask that by your grace we will be reminded and inspired by the message of its beauty. Let it remind us to look to those who have gone before us as models of faithfulness and service and, at the same time, remind us to look above us for guidance and inspiration, through the everlasting hope of the resurrection. In the name of your Son, our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.