I Can't Stop Looking!

Joe O. Lewis

July 20, 2014

(Certain Greeks) came therefore to Philip... , and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus.  

John 12:21

Are you old enough to remember Ray Stevens 1974 song about the streaker?  If you are you can doubtless help me tell the story.  In the song, a TV Newsman interviews the same country bumpkin three times after "disturbances" occurred at the supermarket, and at the gas station and  at a basketball game .  Each "disturbance" was caused when a streaker wearing nothing but a smile ran by.  Each time the man yelled to his wife "Don't look Ethel," but it was too late.   There are some things that just capture our attention.  I say that to note that some things you see in church are captivating too!  Take our beautiful windows, for example.  I thought I was well hidden behind a post in the back of the sanctuary, but Dr. Moebes caught me  a time or two looking at our stained glass windows instead of concentrating on his sermon!   My defense was that the windows made me do it.  They are just so beautiful, I can't stop looking at them. It would serve me right if your eyes wandered to the windows while I preach today;  in fact, I invite you to look and I've provided you a picture of the five scenes in our window because it is very hard to see the details from where you sit.  I remind you that Yogi Berra, baseball great and sometime philosopher,  said "You can observe a lot just by looking!"
There are eight windows along the walls that tell the story of Jesus from the four Gospels and a ninth one in the series at the front that has scenes from the book of Acts. The Norman Rockwell of poetry, Edgar A. Guest, began one of his poems, " I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day."  He could certainly get his wish filled here.  No one in this sanctuary need ever go home without seeing a great sermon--no matter what we preachers say! Today I want to look especially at the window on your left and behind me and see the sermons it preaches.  The first sermon is all about light and color and it is a sermon on the sacred.

The Sermon On The Sacred

Even before the windows interpret God's redeeming love for us they preach a sermon about how special this place, this very room, is.  From the early pages of the Bible people are said to have met God at special places.  Moses was working his sheep one day when he saw something that captivated him.  He couldn't stop looking.  It was a bush that burned but did not burn up, and Moses met his Master there.  It was holy ground and he had to do something different--he took his shoes off.  And so it is when we step inside this place.  The blues and greens and reds and gold sparkle like nothing in the rooms of the houses we live in.  We sense even without thinking it through that this is a place where we ought to meet our Master, too.   The wonder of the windows may have become so familiar that we miss their sermon, but the light being transformed into technicolor pictures before our eyes is like a voice from a burning bush saying, "This is holy ground," do something different.  Most of us aren't physically able to get down on our knees  anymore,  but we feel the downward tug and we bow our heads.  The first sermon we see every time we step in this room is that God has entered our space and time and is here waiting on us. This place is sacred.  But after that we see in our window a second sermon on salvation, a sermon on how God prepared us for his Son.

The Sermon On Salvation

Two disciples, one of them known to Luke by the name of Cleopas, had no clue that the dusty road from Jerusalem to Emmaus would be to them what a burning bush was to Moses.  It was Sunday morning.  Jesus had been put in the tomb. They had lost more than a friend.  They had lost their hope that God was in that place with them.  But when a stranger met them on the road and interpreted to them in all the Old Testament the things concerning Jesus their eyes were opened and their hearts burned within them and they had to do something different--they put their shoes on and went back to Jerusalem.  I wonder how many stories in the Old Testament that stranger had to go over with them before they got the point.  Our window leads us through God's plan for our redemption by using just four scenes!

The Expulsion From the Garden
The window could have started with the creation of the world (the Word) or at least with the creation of Adam as in Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel painting of God stretching forth his finger toward that first Adam.  But instead the window begins with the expulsion of guilty man and woman from the Garden. Why start with them?  Because the sermon on salvation is about the salvation of sinners like us.  What does the expulsion from the garden have to do with the birth of Christ?  The obvious answer is that it explains why there needed to be a birth of Christ, the Son of God and Savior of sinners like Adam and Eve.  The beginning of sin leads ultimately to the need for a savior.
You remember, of course, that when Adam and Eve realized  they were naked, they “covered themselves with fig leaves” (3:7).  But after God confronted them and heard their confessions, the text says that “The Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins, and clothed them” (3:21).  That seems to be a very early note about God’s grace—God did for them what they could not do for themselves.  Our artist, however, has chosen to depict the guilty pair without clothes-- still naked-- not even fig leaves for covering--and fleeing.  They are wearing neither the fig leaves nor the garments of skins suggesting that they are still in need of God’s grace just like us.  And neither of them has a halo.  We can almost hear the Apostle Paul say, "O wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of death" (Romans 7:24).  If you would see Jesus, look first to yourselves and confess that you are Adam and Eve and you need him.

The Near Sacrifice of Isaac  
The story in the window moves from a sinful pair in need of a Savior to a father who was willing to sacrifice his only son on whom his whole future depended .  This story—terrible as it is—surely was chosen because it brings to mind another Father who  "so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believed in him might have life” (John 3:16).
There are four figures in this panel and the story moves from the kneeling Isaac, to an Abraham arrested in the very act of sacrifice, to an angel who grabs his arm and, finally, to a ram tangled up in a bush.  To see the sermon in this scene it helps to have seen the way another artist portrayed it.  Caravaggio painted the scene in 1603 and depicted Isaac as  overcome after a battle with Abraham; he has a scream on his lips while being held face down on the altar with a knife at his throat.    But in our window Isaac is depicted as bound but willingly kneeling and not objecting.  He is offering himself as Christ would later do.  Indeed, we can almost hear the prayer he offers—“if it be possible, let this cup pass from me, yet not as I will….”    It is the same prayer that the Christ offers in the companion scene of Gethsemane in the right hand window.  Isaac kneels upon a neatly stacked cord of large logs—enough wood for a cross.   Do you see the sermon?  If you would see Jesus, don't look at Abraham; look at Isaac.

The Transfiguration of Moses
The account of Moses reception of the Law is recorded more than once in the Old Testament.  You remember that Moses shattered the first set of tables and had to go back up the mountain before God once again to get a second copy.   In our window, Moses is seated for the second time looking upward as if God has just spoken to him.  The stones have already been inscribed (although the writing in our window is symbolized by Roman numerals of which I, II, III and a little bit of IV are visible).  Moses’ hair has been blown backward as if by a mighty blast of wind.  And then there are those two rays that extend from Moses’ head beyond his halo to the outer edge of the panel. In Exodus 34 it is said that when Moses descended the second time with the Law, “the skin of his face shone..” (v.30).  Our artist has  depicted the very light of the presence of God reflected from the head of Moses.   Do you see the sermon?  This transfigured Moses would one day commune with a transfigrued Christ while Peter and his companions stood amazed.  John captured the awe when he wrote:  "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth "(John 1:12).  If you would see Jesus,  don't look at the Law; look at Moses.

The Suffering Servant
There is no doubt about the biblical source of the next panel.  It comes from Isaiah 6 and pictures Isaiah’s famous call while he was in the temple.  Isaiah confesses that he is a “man of unclean lips” living in the midst of people like himself.  He saw a vision of God exalted on a throne with seraphim beside him.  In his vision, Isaiah saw one of the seraphim take a burning coal from the altar with a pair of tongs and touch his mouth with it, sanitizing his mouth so it could speak for God.  And when God asks who will go for him, Isaiah responded with the right response, “Here am I, send me.”  That is the picture we see in the figure of Isaiah in this panel.  His lips are being cleansed and his right hand is upright as if he is taking an oath of allegiance to the Lord.  But the sermon we need to see is the sermon of the left hand.  The left hand tells us how this scene leads us to the Christ.
The left hand gestures toward a figure who stands on an altar with his hands bound behind his back.  The image represents Christ as the "suffering servant"who was "bruised for our iniquities."   If you look closely at the head of Jesus you will see that our artist has placed it within a cross.  The picture could hardly have been made any clearer.  The prophet Isaiah spoke of Christ on the cross.  The reference of the image is to Isaiah 52-53 where the Servant of the Lord suffers and dies for others. The sermon of the left hand should not be missed.  If you would see Jesus, don't look at Isaiah;  look at the Servant.

The Coming of Christ
At first glance the top window just portrays the birth of Christ.  There is a star at the top representing the star of Bethlehem with rays proceeding out from the star.  There are three figures just barely visible between the heads of Mary and Joseph, and, presumably, these are  the Wise Men who came looking for the newborn king.  Then, there are three major figures in the panel: Mary, Joseph and the Christ.  Mary has lifted her right hand as if to caress the Christ.  But look closely at Joseph!  He holds a branch from a tree as if it were a king's scepter.  Look again at the very top of the branch and notice that it is flowering.  In that tiny flower there is a meaningful message. The blossoming rod tells us that Christ is  the“shoot from the stump of Jesse,” the one Isaiah spoke of, the one we have been looking for across all the Old Testament--the Messiah. Yogi  had it right:  "When you come to a fork in the road, take it!"  It doesn't matter which fork you take from here because all paths lead to Jesus.
But look closely at the figure inside the oval frame, it is not a "babe wrapped in swaddling clothes" but Christ with arms wide open to receive Adam and Eve and you and me.
If you would see Jesus, then

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full on his wonderful face and the things of earth will 

grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

I can't stop looking.  I hope you won't stop looking either.

I invite you to respond to the invitation today by praying with me using the words of our closing hymn, 502, Open My Eyes That I May See.  Let us stand and sing all the verses.

Please remain standing after our benediction as our choir dismisses us.

The Benediction

And now as you go

May the Love of God the Father,

Love divine all loves excelling;

The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,

Grace that is greater than all our sin;

And the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit,

The fellowship of kindred minds and ties that bind

Rest and abide with you now and forevermore.

Amen