Truth in a Window
Chartres Cathedral is about 75 miles southwest of Paris, in a little town called Chartres. The cathedral dominates the town. I visited there awhile back, and frankly, I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Why? The long-gone folks who built this incredible building knew how to communicate with story—I got the messages even hundreds of years later. And it made me wonder about what we do on-air every day.
Our guide to the cathedral explained that it was built to be not just be a place of worship for the people who lived in the area, but it was also a story, a place that families could go to teach their children about God. Back during the building of it about 800 years ago, most folks couldn’t read, and if they could it was Latin, not for the common person. What a barrier to understanding! Just close your eyes and imagine it.
So what the craftsmen did was build stories into architecture—the doorways, the sculptures and especially the stain glass windows. This particular cathedral has more stained glass than any cathedral in the world. In fact, it’s so valuable that during WW2 people who cared took it down and stored it away knowing there was a good chance it might wind up broken.
What might one of the stories be in one of these magnificent windows? One I saw had the bottom half as the story of the Good Samaritan, while the top half was Adam and Eve. A sermon might connect these two stories. For example, they might tie in the Inn as a place of refuge in the Good Samaritan.
There are hundreds of these at Chartres. Yes, literally hundreds of pictures that attempt to make the profound story of God’s love clear to people who couldn’t read but needed to understand as much as any of us or any of our listeners.
Didn’t the Apostle Paul provide an example of this when he spoke at Mars Hill, and referenced various objects and inscriptions found in the Areopagus? He spoke about things his audience was familiar with and understood. See Acts chapter 17 in whatever Bible version you prefer.
What is important today as we communicate the message of faith is the very same principle. Make the truth understandable. It is our responsibility to do so—not the audience responsibility to parse what we are saying to try to excavate the truth. Ask yourself if what you are doing is “flying over people’s heads”. Or is the message clear enough to create heart change?
The craftsmen of Chartres, the apostle Paul…now it’s our turn.
