Christ of the Universe

He writes his name across the sky
With suns and stars and nebuli.
Strange plight, he still re­mains unseen.
His essence like a rare perfume
Is hid in his magnificence.
Man stands in awe of uni­ver­sal sight
Yet he re­mains blind in spa­cious night.
Be­hold­ers of this world we are lost in transience.
We find it hard to rise above our insignificance.
All far flung, sep­a­rate and apart.
And then is traced a hymn across our heart.
We come alive.
Cre­ation shouts with end­less meaning
But we must sing that song He writes
Or find our­selves again in end­less night.
That hymn is Je­sus Christ.

This poem, “Christ of the Uni­verse,” was writ­ten by The Rev. Don­ald H. Knapp, rec­tor of Grace from 1969 – 1993, and re­minds us to both stand in awe of the ex­pan­sive love of God made man­i­fest in cre­ation and to come alive, to en­gage with it. Through Knapp’s lead­er­ship, Grace in­creased out­reach min­istries to the in­ner city, in­clud­ing two promi­nent ones that con­tin­ue to­day – a food pantry, be­gan in 1972, and a Montes­sori “min­istry,” which con­tin­ues to­day as Grace Montes­sori School.

The poem was in­ter­pret­ed by stained glass artist An­tho­ny A. Mako (1921−1988), in the form of five “lancet” win­dows, stun­ning in vi­brant col­ors and ab­stract, mys­ti­cal shapes reach­ing to the heav­ens. Im­ages and sym­bol­ism in the window

Spread­ing the Light of Grace – In recog­ni­tion of Grace’s 150th an­niver­sary at 5th and Lin­den in the heart of Al­len­town, cur­rent mem­bers of the church have been re­flect­ing on what it means to spread the Light of God’s Grace into the com­mu­ni­ty to­day. Love of neigh­bor and neigh­bor­hood has been a guide­post since Grace’s ear­ly days, and we con­tin­ue to bear wit­ness to Christ’s love for all through ser­vice and wor­ship. The “Christ of the Uni­verse” win­dow is an out­ward sym­bol of our de­sire to con­tin­u­al­ly turn to Christ for wis­dom and, through that, reach out­ward to serve others.

A gen­er­ous do­na­tion has been made by Grace parish­ioner David Moy­er, in hon­or of his late hus­band William Klopp, to light the win­dow from the in­side, re­mind­ing us that it is here in the church and our re­la­tion­ships in beloved com­mu­ni­ty, that we are filled with God’s love, to be sent forth into the world. We pray that we are so il­lu­mined by Christ, to spread Light into the world, and to be a bea­con of hope for the neigh­bor­hood around us.