OLD TESTAMENT WINDOW #2
ABRAHAM:
A RESPONSE IN FAITH.
The next set of windows speaks of a response in faith as found in Sacred Scripture. With Abraham in the Old Testament we have the beginning of revelation in the Bible. Abraham stands before us as an example of a man of faith. It is in the covenant of Abraham with God that the process of salvation is initiated and finds its total fulfillment through Christ: The promise of the new covenant. After accepting God's promise of descendents as numerous as the stars in the heavens add to that the sands of the sea; he embraced his covenant with God with confidence in its fulfillment, and he acknowledged the power and will of God to fulfill His promise. Abraham accepted God's word as true, and he trusted in it.
In the center of the window can be found a sacrificial pyre with coals, a bundle of wood, and a sacrificial knife; all symbolic of Abraham's willingness to obey the word of God and trust in His promise. The power of god is symbolized by the sun and the mountain directly beneath the sacrificial symbols. The Hebrew letters on the sun spell out the name "El Shaddai": God of the mountain. It is also sometimes translated as God the Almighty. "El Shaddai" is the name given to God by the Hebrews prior to Moses. At the bottom of the window is an anchor cross symbolic of hope and trust and pointing to the fact that the Abraham and Isaac story sometimes seen as a prefigurement of Christ's passion and death.
The sands of the sea at the bottom of the window and the stars of the heavens at the top refer to God's promise to Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as these. The crown and sceptre at the top of the window refers to the fact that Sarah, the wife of Abraham, will be the mother of nations; and that kings shall spring from her. Faith and trust in God, then, keeps us in touch with reality and helps us to value what is real; and therefore furnishes us to the motive of hope now and for the future.
