The stained glass window of “Welcoming Christ” you see here was given in 1899 in memory of Albert E. Pancoast—a prominent merchant and civic leader—by his wife and daughters. This memorial window is the first of six Tiffany windows at St. Stephen’s. made by Tiffany.
It presents an unusual approach to Jesus’ invitation in Matthew (11:28) inscribed on the top of the window’s “frame:” “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”
This Christ, radiant with renewed vitality after the Passion and Ascension, greets us from heaven to reaffirm the consolation he offered us when living among us. All elements within the window signal the eternal and pure: his pearlescent robes, the white lilies on their vigorous stems, the luminous clouds surrounding his head.
He stands at the edge of an elaborate tabernacle. Rather than a barrier, it’s the portal from this world into heaven. Christ faces us, open-armed, to convey his ongoing open-hearted attentiveness to us in our world across that threshold.
The tabernacle and celestial landscape, the latter likely by Tiffany’s illustrious botanical designer Agnes Fairchild Northrop, emphasize Christ’s gesture: His hands extend the full width of the tabernacle and the lilies rise evenly to meet them from below.
The miraculous light from “somewhere” above spills over the volumes of his face, body, and robe. Though marking his divinity, that light makes Christ mysteriously HERE, as palpable as we are, as he was while human. And he’s HERE to console us in life, as well to welcome us beyond.
This luminous, simply composed window captivates from afar. With its placement on the lower register of the south wall near the chancel, the risen Christ, now on our level, addresses us throughout the nave. There, it also draws us to that zone where we interact with the divine through the Eucharist at the altar.