A few days ago, the sun set at about the same time we were holding a small service in the nave of the church. As the sun went down, the light came in the very small openings in our minimalist stained glass windows. By minimalist, I mean that the only stained glass are small squares of beautifully colored glass surrounding the main panes of the frosted windows. The only direct sunlight that enters the sanctuary comes through in fine shafts of colored light, but the whole of the space is illuminated softly, and glows during the sunrises, and sunsets. I was captivated by the sun through the panes, and I took some pictures. Afterwards, as I looked at them, they felt familiar. I knew the source of the familiarity–it had to do with Chagall, and his astonishing colors, biblical imagery, and stained glass. But I didn’t remember precisely what was familiar until today–the shape of the light from the sunset mirrors the image of one of Chagall’s images of the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden. I have always loved that particular Tree of Life, but had never seen it in person until two years ago. This week, this sixth Sunday of Easter, we’ll read of the Tree of Life in the city of God. No wonder these images have been rising to the surface–I love the way biblical imagery pervades the collective unconscious, and rises when needed, unexpectedly, but there. The Tree of Life rises in the mind of a creative genius of an artist like Chagall; its shape born of something heard and remembered, an echo of an echo, the daughter of a voice. Those images made of biblical words sound down the ear, and become a catechesis of the heart, carving the imagination. An echo becomes a shape in a space so far from here or there, past and future, time and distance undone. One sunset in a week of Easter, seen through one tiny pane of clear glass, becomes the Tree of Life, and the universe opens in all its beauty.

“The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.”