The Cathedral That Began as Rubble

In 1945, the people of Coventry, England, stood in the wreckage of their beloved St. Michael's Cathedral, reduced to a burned-out shell by German incendiary bombs. The medieval walls that had echoed with seven centuries of prayer were now open to the sky. Old parishioners wept. Some said the congregation should simply meet elsewhere and forget rebuilding. What could possibly replace what they had lost?

But Basil Spence, the architect chosen to design the new cathedral, did something no one expected. He kept the ruins. He built the new sanctuary right beside them, connecting old devastation to new creation with a single shared wall. When the new Coventry Cathedral opened in 1962, visitors discovered something remarkable — the building was not a replica of what had been destroyed. It was something entirely different. Brilliant stained glass by John Piper flooded the nave with color that the old medieval windows never achieved. Graham Sutherland's enormous tapestry of Christ in Glory overwhelmed every visitor who entered. The ruined shell became a garden of reconciliation.

The returned exiles in Haggai's day looked at their modest rebuilt temple and mourned because it could not match Solomon's gold-laden original. But the Lord of Hosts spoke through His prophet a promise that defied every measurement they could take: "The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house." God was not restoring the old. He was doing something new — and in that very place, He would give shalom.