On a Stained Glass Christmas

 I am preaching a sermon series for advent called, "A Stained Glass Christmas" -- this is the idea behind it. Thanks to Dunwoody Baptist Church and FBC Winnfield families for encouragement and much love.

Before I came to Dunwoody in the 80s as youth pastor, I served a church in Louisiana. During my time there, we did a building project (anyone surprised?). We renovated a sanctuary building that was built in the 1920s. We decided to restore and repurpose the old building to preserve the stories of the wonderful history of the church (home of Huey and Earl Long) rather than to tear down the historic building and start over. 

We discovered many things about renovating an old building. The columns were full of bees. The foundation was leveled by pouring more concrete. The roof trusses were so full of termites that the inspector said “the only thing holding this building up is that the termites must be holding hands. And the stained glass windows needed to be completely restored. 

I learned more about stained glass than I ever thought I would know as I watched the tradesmen remove each window and transport it to a rented storefront nearby that had been transformed into a stained glass studio. Each window was disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled using the original lead process. Then each window was replaced in its original location and sealed with a storm glass to preserve it. 

Seems like a lot of work and expense for windows. But stay with me. 

At its most basic level, a stained glass project consists of pieces of glass whose edges are joined together in some manner. There are two common materials used to join glass –copper foil and lead. With each, the glass edges are held in a channel that conforms to the shape of the piece. Stained glass is colored glass and it has been used for a thousand years to create art in windows, using the color of the glass and the sun that God provides to illuminate the story in the window. Stained glass has been used historically in churches, but has expanded to other applications by modern artists like Frank Lloyd Wright and even the famous lamps of Louis Comfort Tiffany.

The craftsman takes small pieces of colored glass and creates a story, an image, a work of art by arranging the glass into designs or pictures, bordered and secured by strips of lead or copper. Sometimes additional details are painted.  The artist doesn't just start putting glass into random places. He or she has an idea in mind, a story that the window must tell.  In addition to artistic skills, the artist must design it in such a way that it can be a chapter in a story with other windows in the same room and also hold up to wind and rain and cold--as functional as it is beautiful as a window.

I have seen incredible stained glass from the Notre Dame in Paris to the stunning contemporary design at FBC Huntsville, Alabama. In Europe, many stained glass windows remain and it is fair to say that they are examples of a major art form from the medieval period. Interestingly, they do not serve very well as windows as it is difficult to see out. However, they manipulate light in such a way as to create beauty regardless of which side of the window one is standing. 

So what? It occurred to me that the various parts of the Christmas story are independent in a way, yet the pieces need to come together in just the right way to tell the story of Jesus’ birth and why it is significant to us. Three of the gospel writers viewed the nativity through their own lens. The Gospel According to Mark has no story of Jesus's birth. Instead, Mark's story begins by describing Jesus's adult life, introducing it with the words, “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (1:1). 

Mark does tell of John the Baptist, who predicts the coming of a man more powerful than himself. And each adds details that the others leave out. We need all of the writers, all of the stories to bring together the intent of God the Father in sending His son to us as a baby, to grow into a man and to be the sacrifice for our sin and brokenness. 

Only two of the four canonical gospels, Matthew (Matthew 1:18-25) and Luke (Luke 2:1-7), offer narratives regarding the birth of Jesus. Of these two, only Luke offers the details of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem.  John’s gospel starts at the beginning of the universe, telling us that the birth of Jesus was part of God’s design for mankind from the start. 

From the original idea for the Christmas series: The music of Christmas is always memorable in church.  At DBC, this year, the combined choirs and orchestra will present “The Symphony of Christmas” on Christmas Eve. The five songs in the piece provide the background and the storyline for the series. The titles come from the movements in the music. Each of the messages is a component of the story–an individual piece of stained glass to go into the window that allows us to see the whole story.

Oh and by the way, I love a saying about perspective: “When you look at a window, you see fly specks, tiny cracks, and the accumulated dust and dirt. When you look through a window, you see the world that God made and challenged us to love.”

The point of the series is to look at the beautiful window that God has given us in the story of Jesus coming to earth to live and die so that people can be forgiven from sin. Then we look through the window at a world desperately in need of that message.

On Thanksmas

I write this on the 21st anniversary of my Dad’s death.  Here’s to you, Pop. Glad Mom is there with you.  We miss you both.  We'll still set a place for you, but you are at a better banquet.

We had a tradition in our family for years that we all called, “Thanksmas.”  My Dad actually started the tradition when grandchildren were little. He thought that ‘every kid should wake up on Christmas morning in their own home’ and suggested that we all get together for our family time at Thanksgiving. There were four Jackson kids and we all got married and started families over the course of a decade or so, ending up with 8 grandkids. We also spread out to Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee and Georgia. We also had inlaws. Judi and I loved the tradition. Once Aaron was born, we didn’t really have it in us to travel at Christmas. You may or may not know, but pastors always have a Christmas Eve service that we do and that means that if we are going to wake up in a distant city with our families of origin, we have to drive through the night. 

So the Jackson family invented Thanksmas. Judi and I–and the inlaws and outlaws–agreed that we would spend Christmas with Judi’s Mom and Thanksgiving with the chaotic Jackson clan. So every Thanksgiving week, Judi and I would drive with Aaron and Sarah to Atlanta from Louisiana–usually on Tuesday or Wednesday–and spend the middle of the week with my Mom and Dad and my older sister Carol and her two boys, my younger sister Susan and her husband and her son and daughter, and my younger brother James, my sister-in-law Trish, and their two boys.  For Thanksmas.

Some fantastic traditions birthed from Thanksmas. We would all set up camp at either my parents’ house or my sister’s house.  The basement had pallets for all the older cousins (who now call themselves “the council of cousins” and make most of the decisions for the extended family). Wednesday was for finalizing shopping for the Thanksgiving feast and buying last minute Thanksmas gifts. Friday was for the serious shopping, back when Black Friday didn’t last for most of the fall. Until he died in 2000, my father was the King of Thanksmas, pretty much second-guessing every decision anybody else made, but rarely making any decisions without being prompted. I understand that a lot better now. 

On Thursday morning–Thanksgiving Day–several of us got up really early to go to the Chamblee Marta station to run the Atlanta Half Marathon.  As many as 7 of us ran it one year and the rest of the family took up posts along to route to cheer us on. We liked that tradition. When you burn that many calories in the morning, you can eat whatever you want to for the rest of the day. We got home from the run sometime late morning and started preparations for Thanksgiving dinner.  Everybody had favorites, and everybody had some contribution. Some years we smoked the turkey. One time we fried the turkey. Mostly it was cooked in the oven so we could argue about which dressing was better–the stuffing that was inside the turkey when it was cooked or the stuffing that got cooked separately.

Dinner was sometime around 2 in the afternoon and after lunch we would either nap or play football.  Dad would referee.  I remember the year he died–the day before Thanksgiving–we still played football, but we set a bench up on the sideline to remember him.  After he died, we also set a place for him at our table, even though we knew he was eating at a much bigger table. 

Life was full. Turkey. Football. Nap. Rinse, repeat. As far as football loyalties, we represented by Georgia, Georgia Tech, FSU, LSU, Kentucky, and Auburn (and throw in Southern Mississippi and Georgia State, but they were irrelevant to the football discussion). Somehow we still got along.  After football, we would come inside to nap some more, watch whatever games were on and officially transition from Thanksgiving to Christmas. My sister would have the house totally decorated but not lit up. When we gathered to read “The Christmas Story” from Luke, we would flip the switches to light up tree(s) and garland and officially transition from “Thanks” to “mas.” We drew names sometime in early November, set a price limit and tried to buy something that would be appreciated. We outlawed gift cards when it got to be more common than it wasn’t. Everyone would give their gift to the family member whom they had drawn until all the gifts were given.

As I reflect on those Thanksmas holidays, I remember being profoundly grateful. Maybe it is because the holiday reminded me to be thankful. Maybe it is because we all made the effort to be family. Maybe I looked around the room and cherished all the relationships. Maybe I was aware enough to appreciate that we could buy a turkey, buy presents for each other, afford to travel across the southeast to be together. Maybe because I had a similar gratitude when the family news was good and when the news that particular year had challenges or sadness. Maybe because I wasn’t in charge of anything “churchy” I was especially able to take time to thank God that everyone in the room had access to the message of forgiveness and hope that is the person of Jesus Christ. 

So Happy Thanksmas.