Cruising up the Thames on a summer evening is a slice of heaven on earth. The cool twilight breeze over the water quickens the senses as we pass under London Bridge and catch a glimpse of the Tower of London, gleaming white with the final rays of dusk. Christopher Wren’s St. Paul’s Cathedral dominates the northern bank as the London Eye comes into focus far ahead in the distance. As darkness falls, the lights of this ancient city illuminate the river where Roman boats once sailed. At length, we dock just under Big Ben and walk around the corner to Westminster Abbey, my favorite man-made structure on earth.
The original abbey was built by King Edward the Confessor in 1065, one year prior to the Norman invasion. The edifice we enjoy today dates mainly from 1245 and the reign of King Henry III. Seventeen Royals make Westminster their final resting place, including Elizabeth I, Anne of Cleves, Edward V and Mary Queen of Scots. Adding to her imperial history, the abbey has witnessed 38 coronations including her first on Christmas Day 1066, when William the Conqueror marched directly from the Battle of Hastings to be crowned king. What makes the Abbey even more interesting is the vast number of playwrights and famous Brits who find in her their final earthly home. Among the most notable are:
Oliver Cromwell, Charles Darwin, Sir Isaac Newton, Geoffrey Chaucer, Charles Dickens, George Frederick Handel, William Wilberforce, and my beloved novelist Thomas Hardy
But, beyond all these incredible human beings rests a building made to and for the glory of God.
Westminster Abbey is one of the oldest Gothic Cathedrals in England and she differs from her Romanesque predecessors through invention and innovation. The very first Gothic architect was the Abbot Suger (pronounced Soo Zher) whose colossal handiwork was the remodeling of the Church of Saint Denis in France. His modern worldview decreed that men only come to understand the absolute beauty (God) through the affect of precious and beautiful things on our senses. When overcome with something true, beautiful, perfect or right we respond with worship. The abbot wrote,
“the dull mind rises to truth through that which is material”. With this as his impetus, he went to work building a cathedral designed to bring heaven down to earth. He was aided by the invention of ribbed vaulting, flying buttresses and pointed arches allowing for much taller structures filled with glass instead of stone. He and his Gothic descendants ceased building small, dark churches made of thick stone walls and instead created enormous cathedrals full of height and light.
The very entrance into such a structure is an escape from temporal reality, and yet it is very much part and parcel of our actuality. Upon entering, you are overcome with a feeling of insignificance, suddenly overwhelmed by something much greater and larger than yourself. As one walks further into the central nave, the trajectory of your gaze turns skyward to the vast ceiling above. No-one can enter a Gothic cathedral without first looking towards heaven, it’s as natural as thunder following lightening. Suger and his 13th century craftsmen captured and expressed the very attributes of God. His architectural style echoes the words of Jesus when he said "if you know me, you know my father in heaven". I can almost hear those great Gothic men of the past saying,
"come, enter this cathedral and look: look at the grandeur, look at the height, experience the light, study the detail and symmetry, postulate on reason, engulf yourself in mystery, feel your own dependence and above all wonder; wonder at the majesty of it all because THIS IS WHAT GOD IS LIKE."
From Westminster in England to
Chartres in France, the Gothic style continues reminding us that God is near.
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