Possibly Forrest & Bromley

The Risen Christ with Moses, c.1858, Stained glass, 50 cm (width of each), Church of St Rhuddlad, Llanrhyddlad, Anglesey; Given in memory of Revd James Hughes, ©️ Martin Crampin

Jesus and Moses

Commentary by Susan Docherty

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One of the most important questions facing the earliest Christians was how to explain the relationship between Jesus and central figures in the Jewish Scriptures, like Moses. The author of Hebrews avoids the denigration of Moses’s significance found in some other Christian sources, acknowledging that Moses was no less faithful than Jesus, and that both operated within the same arena: God’s ‘house’ (Hebrews 3:2). The high regard accorded to Moses here is used, however, to magnify the even greater glory attaching to Christ as son of God (vv.5–6).

This two-light stained-glass window set in the west wall of the nave in a church on the island of Anglesey likewise depicts Moses as he stands in relation to Christ. It can be dated to the mid-nineteenth century, but very little is known about its design or production. Martin Crampin, a leading expert in Welsh stained glass, has tentatively ascribed it to the relatively short-lived Liverpool studio of Forrest and Bromley.

On the surface, the imagery is quite conventional, showing Moses holding the tablets of the Ten Commandments, representing the Jewish Law, while the risen Christ imparts a blessing. This portrayal hints at the difference in their role and status. Nevertheless, it is striking that the ‘inferiority’ of Moses is not unduly stressed: both figures are richly garbed, for instance, and surrounded by the same deep blue background and patterned framing.

The Ten Commandments given through Moses appear in this image, then, as a necessary part of the gospel message brought by Christ, which is symbolized by the open book in the window’s upper trefoil inscribed with the words ‘Preach the Gospel’.

 

References

Crampin, Martin (ed.). 2011. ‘The Risen Christ with Moses’, Stained Glass in Wales Catalogue, University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, available at https://stainedglass.delweddau.cymru/object/4151 [accessed 27 December 2024]

See full exhibition for Hebrews 3–4

Hebrews 3–4

Revised Standard Version

Hebrews 3

3Therefore, holy brethren, who share in a heavenly call, consider Jesus, the apostle and high priest of our confession. 2He was faithful to him who appointed him, just as Moses also was faithful in God’s house. 3Yet Jesus has been counted worthy of as much more glory than Moses as the builder of a house has more honor than the house. 4(For every house is built by some one, but the builder of all things is God.) 5Now Moses was faithful in all God’s house as a servant, to testify to the things that were to be spoken later, 6but Christ was faithful over God’s house as a son. And we are his house if we hold fast our confidence and pride in our hope.

7 Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says,

“Today, when you hear his voice,

8do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion,

on the day of testing in the wilderness,

9where your fathers put me to the test

and saw my works for forty years.

10Therefore I was provoked with that generation,

and said, ‘They always go astray in their hearts;

they have not known my ways.’

11As I swore in my wrath,

‘They shall never enter my rest.’ ”

12Take care, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 13But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. 14For we share in Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end, 15while it is said,

16Who were they that heard and yet were rebellious? Was it not all those who left Egypt under the leadership of Moses? 17And with whom was he provoked forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18And to whom did he swear that they should never enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.

4 Therefore, while the promise of entering his rest remains, let us fear lest any of you be judged to have failed to reach it. 2For good news came to us just as to them; but the message which they heard did not benefit them, because it did not meet with faith in the hearers. 3For we who have believed enter that rest, as he has said,

For he has somewhere spoken of the seventh day in this way, “And God rested on the seventh day from all his works.” 5And again in this place he said,

6Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience, 7again he sets a certain day, “Today,” saying through David so long afterward, in the words already quoted,

8For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not speak later of another day. 9So then, there remains a sabbath rest for the people of God; 10for whoever enters God’s rest also ceases from his labors as God did from his.

11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, that no one fall by the same sort of disobedience. 12For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13And before him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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