In Otley Parish Church, like many churches, there is a wonderful East Window above the Holy Table or Altar on which we place the bread and wine for a service of Holy Communion. There are five main ‘lights’, or sections of the window depicting Jesus and the four Gospel writers. There are also six more stained glass windows which tell the story of Jesus and some of his teaching.

In days when few people could read or owned a bible, these tableaux were even more significant to ordinary people. The aim of such windows is certainly to create a beautiful work of art which reminds people of the Bible story. But I think the aim goes beyond remembering the tale or the event in Jesus’ life. They aim for something more – to point to the kingdom of heaven, which was the point of so many of Jesus’ stories. The words of George Herbert’s poem ‘The Elixir’ capture this:

A man that looks on glass,

On it may stay his eye;

Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,

And then the heav’n espy.

Herbert is writing about stained glass windows, which tell a story from the Bible. But he could have been writing about the Bible itself. For this is what can happen when we read scripture – we see the truth beyond the words and stories, through to glimpsing heaven or the kingdom of God. Truth that transcends the material world. What is true cannot be limited to scientific or historic fact. The truth we need as human beings is deeper and wider and higher than what we can see, or touch or taste.

There is obvious beauty in the stained glass. There is also beauty in a story well told, in a fitting proverb or a poetic image. And truth and beauty are so intricately linked as Keats’ wrote: “beauty is truth, truth beauty” (Ode on a Grecian Urn).

It’s why we need music and transcendent worship. The Bible alone is not enough for our worship.  It provides resources for hymns and songs and prayers and preaching. It gives a basis for sharing bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion. But we must go beyond its provisions and allow the Spirit of God to lead us into the presence of God and change our hearts. Through the Bible we are led to Christ, and with the Spirit’s help to the kingdom of God/heaven. But the Bible, however treasured, is a thing of this age, and the day will come when we shall all know God and the earth will be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.

As a book, the Bible is powerless until we read it. Then it requires a sort of double listening. Hearing (or reading) the words and listening for the Spirit beyond all words. Not that God can’t or doesn’t break through and shout at us sometimes, but it is still our responsibility to open our ears and our hearts to Christ.

In reading a text, for example the feeding of the 5,000, the question “what actually happened?” can be asked. Maybe we try to reconstruct one story of the feeding of the 5,000 from the slightly different versions in each of the four gospels. We ask questions such as “Was that a miracle or is there another explanation?”. These questions are fair enough as far as they go. But the point is they don’t go far enough and may prevent us going further – like only seeing the window, maybe admiring the workmanship, but not looking through the window to the heaven beyond.

Imagination

Imagination is perhaps a human key to seeing through the picture or the story in front of us. I love the way children will play imaginative games with the simplest of props (even in this screen-dominated age). Some of the most moving times in worship have been when drawn into the imagined world of a biblical story, its backstory.

Imagine Jesus and his disciples walking to the wedding at Cana, the talk they had, the humour, the poking fun at whoever might be the next candidate for marriage. Jesus having a word with his proud mother, asking her not to land him in it again … then his mother and a steward approaching him. She has that look in her eye … The more we know about the background to any story, such as a wedding or daily life in Palestine, the more our imagination can bring to life the recorded story and create a deeper engagement which God’s Spirit may richly bless.