Do you remember the first time you encountered our Sanctuary? I routinely talk to people who are coming in for the first time and say something like, “I have been past this building for years, but I had no idea how beautiful it is inside.” Or more simply, “Wow.” We are stewards of almost embarrassing beauty. That is true for the Gospel of our Lord, and it is true for His house here at 4100 Main Street. It is not just that the windows transform sunlight into vibrant colors or that the refracted light in the room is different throughout the day and the year. The windows themselves tell the Gospel story.
When the Sanctuary was built, the glass in our windows looked like the glass on the chandeliers. But during World War II—while Americans were growing “victory gardens,” rationing groceries and gasoline, and buying war bonds—our pastor, Hermond Westmoreland, began thinking about life after the war. He told the congregation that when the war was over the world was going to need a church worthy of the Gospel. He challenged the people to make sacrificial gifts over and above their tithes and offerings to adorn the Sanctuary with stained glass. Dr. Westmoreland and the education director, John Durst, designed the windows, which were fabricated by Paine-Speirs Studios in Patterson, New Jersey. (Each side window cost $1,200 and the rose window was a whopping $1,650.) Dr. Westmoreland decided to tell the story of the life and ministry of Jesus in the upper windows and to tell the story of the Old and New Testaments in the lower windows. From time to time, Dr. Westmoreland would preach through the upper windows. To my knowledge, he never preached through the lower windows—perhaps because no one wanted to sit through a 40-week series on stained glass!
Those windows have become part of our heritage. And knowing the story they tell helps us to claim the Sanctuary as our own, helps us to receive the blessing that prior generations sacrificed to give to us. So, this fall I am going to begin a series on the lower windows. Fear not, we are going to take them in smaller chunks. Each side window has four smaller windows in the lower section. We’ll take one section from the Old Testament each fall and one section from the New Testament each spring. The first set is: Creation, Flood, the Covenant with Abraham, and the Covenant with Moses. It will take five years to complete the series, and we’ll finish just as we celebrate the church’s 125th anniversary in November 2028. Learning more about the Sanctuary is interesting; internalizing the truth and narrative of Scripture is life-transforming. My hope is we can all experience something in the Sanctuary for the first time, again and again.
