Easter > Holy Week Devotionals > Monday
NO HAPPY ACCIDENT
BY TRACE JONES
Stained glass and I have an interesting history. Maybe you’re different. Maybe you inherently see the beauty in it. For a long time, all I saw was a dated decor style. As a matter of fact, when a flood destroyed my in-laws’ home, I was baffled when they were ecstatic they could keep their front door with its elaborate stained glass. I thought getting a new front door would be the one silver lining! It is easy to dismiss something though, when you don’t understand it, when you see it simply as an outdated tradition, or when you miss the beauty of it.
On first glance, stained glass seems like a sort of happy accident. It gives the appearance of the product of someone shattering larger pieces of colored glass, sifting through the broken pieces, and jigsawing a few decent pieces together into a somewhat coherent mess. Try to make stained glass like that and see what happens. It’s ok. I’ll wait.
When you move beyond glancing at stained glass toward making it, you learn something profound. Stained glass is no happy accident. Yes, it takes smaller pieces of larger pieces of glass, but they’re not randomly selected. The artist begins by picking a color palette before moving toward drawing the design. Then, they must transfer the pattern to the glass they’re about to cut out. Once cut, the now small piece of glass must be ground down and prepped to be soldered into a larger design. Once all the pieces are cut and have copper attached to them, they can be soldered together. This new picture is just a few finishing steps away from being done.
When you understand all that went into making a stained glass design happen, you have a new appreciation for it. This is no happy accident; it is a plan come together. This is no dated piece of tradition; it is a beautiful masterpiece. This is no random breakage; but the intentional creation of the creator. What was once just a broken piece of glass is now woven into a picture that tells a story, and when you view it like that, you want to examine every inch of it! Then, you bask in the different perspective that staring through each individual piece of glass brings you. It’s amazing to see a creator at work. We get to see a creator at work in our lives every day. We all have stories of how God redeemed pieces of our lives, and when we look back, we realize that it wasn’t God using shattered pieces as much as it was him molding and refining pieces of our lives to fit into His story.
His story is all about Jesus, and this Easter, we’re gazing at Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection through the piece of stained glass known as 1 Corinthians 15. When we read Paul’s account with the knowledge of what happened, we see new reflections of God’s ultimate design. We see how God made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us, but that was intentional in order that we could inherit the Kingdom of God (v. 50) and boldly declare “death has been swallowed up in victory!” (v. 54).
Each time we look at Scripture, it’s like looking through the reflection of God’s stained glass window of Creation. This guide is a collection of our reflections on 1 Corinthians 15. Now, we want to hear yours. Today we invite you to read through 1 Corinthians 15 and spend time in prayer, that the Lord would reveal Himself to you in fresh ways this Easter. Journal your thoughts and feelings below.
*Tune in to our Family Audio Story tonight and hear about Palm Sunday and the importance of celebrating Jesus for who He is! Listen here!
