Sheffield Cathedral: Light & Dark

I called at Sheffield Cathedral this summer. I preached at a chapel in that city on the Sunday evening, and had some time before my Lincolnshire train departed for my holiday. Like other northern, Anglican cathedrals, such as Bradford and Blackburn, it was originally a large parish church but was extended in the twentieth-century to make it sufficiently grand to warrant a Dean and a bishop’s throne. It is therefore a mixture of medieval and modern. I was particularly struck by its lantern tower, which, when viewed from below, appears star-like. Through its panes, light shines into the cathedral below, which doubtless induces certain persons to inclinations of religious experience. And to any who simply admire the architecture, it is almost as moving.

Rather horribly, there have been two known arson attacks on Sheffield Cathedral, in 1979, for which no-one was charged, and in 2020, when a madcap female was prosecuted. Fire, of course, emits light. Although firelight can be pleasant when gazing at a blazing fire on a wintry evening, it is not so pleasant when its source is dangerous and destructive, and out of control. The destructive and deliberate fires at Sheffield Cathedral would have cast some orange, dancing light on those ancient and modern walls, but it only harmed and retarded, unlike the sunlight and moonlight which cascades through the lofty lantern. A pair of pictures, methinks, of hell and heaven. The flames of hell will forever illuminate the noxious poisons of the unredeemed’s souls, serving as a perpetual reminder of a lifetime’s worth of evil, sin, selfishness and godlessness. And what of the eternal light of heaven, throbbing from Christ’s magnificant throne? That light exposes no sin, for His blood washed it clean away. Rather, it will serve to show us the glorious beauty of His face. 

Then I turned back to see the voice that spake with me: and when I was turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks, And in the midst of the seven candlesticks, one like unto the son of man, clothed with a garment down to the feet, and girded about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and hairs were white as white wool, and as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire, And his feet like unto fine brass burning as in a furnace: and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two edged sword, and his face shone as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead: then he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not: I am that first and that last... Rev 1:12-17, Geneva Bible