To Know Christ, and make Him known.

If you walk through Wesley Church’s breezeway, there is a sermon already being preached.

It doesn’t come from a pulpit, or a Minister, and it doesn’t need a microphone. It is there in the stained-glass window, catching the light, carrying those simple words:

To know Christ and make him known.

Perhaps because we see them so often, we can walk past without really noticing. Yet those words hold together something essential about the Christian life, and they sit beautifully alongside the question Jesus asks his disciples in Matthew 16.

Jesus begins with the easier question: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
The disciples have heard the conversations. Everyone, it seems, has something to say about Jesus.

Then comes the question that changes everything: “But who do you say that I am?”

Suddenly this is no longer about what other people believe. Jesus is asking his friends what they have discovered through walking with him, listening to him, watching him welcome the outsider, heal the wounded, challenge injustice, forgive, teach and love.

Peter finds his voice: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” In that moment, knowing about Jesus becomes something deeper. Peter is beginning to know Christ.

And perhaps that is where our stained-glass window begins too.

To know Christ.

Not simply to collect information about Jesus, or know the right Trivia answers to theological questions. To know Christ is relational. It grows as we worship, read Scripture, share life with one another and pay attention to where Christ may already be at work around us.

And one of the simplest tools we have knowing Jesus, is prayer.

Prayer gives us space to bring the presence of God into our lives. Sometimes there are plenty of words; sometimes there are none. Sometimes prayer is thanksgiving, sometimes wrestling.

Prayer helps us keep returning to Jesus’ question:
Who do you say that I am? Who am I for you?

But the stained glass does not stop with knowing Christ.

It continues: and make him known.
We make Christ known by becoming more like the Christ we are coming to know.

And perhaps that is the invitation of our window. Stained glass is at its most beautiful when light shines through it. On its own it is coloured glass; touched by light, it tells a story.

We keep learning to know Christ, by allowing the light of Christ to shape and colour our lives. And then, through ordinary acts of faith, prayer, courage, kindness and love, that same light shines through us.

To know Christ and make him known. Not merely words in a window, but a way of life.

Perhaps, each time we walk through that breezeway, we might allow those words to become a small prayer:

Lord Jesus Christ, help me to know you more deeply, and through the life I live today, may something of you be known.

Blessings. Rev Carmel