For stained glass artist Gayle Holdman and the “dream team” that accompanied her, creating a five-panel stained glass window depicting the life, mission, miracles and parables of Jesus Christ was no easy feat.
It was an intense process that required the intricate combination of study, skill and divine inspiration.
“The Lord was generous, patient and insistent that we designed the art in the way that he thought best,” Holdman explained in a Monday session of BYU Education Week 2025. “And then the story began to direct us on how to change, eliminate some things, add some other things so that it could be a more powerful witness of the Savior.”
For six years, this five-panel stained glass window, titled “Come Unto Me,” has helped thousands of people visiting the Rome Italy Temple Visitors’ Center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints connect with Christ and his teachings.
Yet, during the Monday session, Holdman and a few members of her “dream team” — namely, BYU religion professors Anthony Sweat, Tyler Griffin and Brad Wilcox — presented on a new nine-panel stained glass window, an extended replica of the one in Italy, designed to travel and invite others to learn of Christ.
Holdman and her accompanying team members explained during their presentation that the four additional panels of the new window, titled “Believe in Him,” depict additional miracles, ancient prophecies regarding Jesus Christ, and the lives and acts of the apostles. They expounded on the lessons and symbolism found on each panel, and detailed the window’s journey of creation.
Extending a witness of Christ to others
Near the start of the presentation, Holdman shared that inspiration to create a traveling stained glass window surged in the time following the permanent installation of the one in Rome.
She said that while many people approached her, her husband and members of their Holdman Studios team, thanking them for the witness of Christ the permanently installed window provided, many others expressed their concern that they’d never get the chance to see the window for themselves.
Thus, in answer to this concern, Holdman and her team felt called to create a traveling exhibit, one that could bring the window’s “unique” testimony of Christ closer to more people around the world. Except this time with increased content.
“(My husband) often says an artist is never finished, he just runs out of time,” Holdman said, explaining their joint desire to create an extended replica of the original window. “So the thought was, ‘Let’s increase the content and our ability to be able to preach of the Savior.’”
What resulted from their work — coupled with the counsel that Sweat, Griffin and Wilcox could provide them as religious scholars — was a traveling stained glass window, one that added two panels at each end of the original’s design for a total of nine panels.
Holdman explained the new window, currently on display at the Washington D.C. Temple Visitors’ Center, was first unveiled in Paris, France, in June 2023. There, approximately 3,500 people responded to invitations to see the piece, which was displayed at a local church meetinghouse for an 11-day period.
Since its time in France, the window has traveled to parts of England — including parliament, the church’s Hyde Park Chapel in London and Pembroke College at Oxford.
One such viewer was Oxford University’s chaplain, the Rev. Dr. Andrew Teal, who first saw the new window at Hyde Park Chapel and later invited Holdman to display it at Oxford. He wrote the following message:
“Who do you say that I am? Jesus seems to be asking the characters portrayed in the panels and each of us who viewed them.
“Whatever our answers in words,” he continued, “the response of the Lord to every soul that has ever lived, everyone who is now alive in mortality, and all who will ever live, is the same: ‘Come unto me’ just as you are, as incomplete and sinful as you may be. As we ‘Believe in Him,’ we will not stay stuck where we are but can grow into the full stature of Christ.”
Holdman said the Rev. Teal’s words were included as a foreword to the book outlining the new window’s lessons and symbolism. She also explained the new window is expected to remain in Washington, D.C., until the end of October.
Below are a few short summaries, detailing some of the lessons and symbols found in each of the new window’s additional panels.
Additional panel 1
Located at the left end of the new stained glass window, this panel depicts, from top to bottom:
- Christ or Jehovah’s premortal miracle of creation
- The mount of temptation where the devil tempted Jesus after his baptism
- The sea of Galilee, which served as a setting for many of Christ’s miracles and teachings
- A flock of sheep, which serves as a nod to Christ as the “good shepherd” and the shepherds who watched over their flock by night in the nativity story
- Cleopas and another unnamed disciple, depicted as a woman or his wife, walking on the road to Emmaus, where they encountered the resurrected Christ
- Philip, sitting, and the Ethiopian eunuch he baptized after helping him learn of Jesus
- A series of symbols representing Jesus Christ, including the brass serpent the Israelites looked to for healing, and stones and water pointing to Christ as the “living stone” or “living water.” The stones, forming the shape of a lamb and lion, also point to Christ as a god of majesty and humility.
Of the creation miracle illustrated at the top of the panel, Griffin said it is often overlooked as one of the “astronomical miracles” performed by Jesus Christ.
“We make a big deal about him walking on water or raising a dead person, or healing the blind or the lame or the halt or the leprous or the deaf,” he said. “(But) what an amazing miracle that there’s even an Earth with biological systems in place and an ecology that is just right.”
Additional panel 2
Placed second from the left, this panel portrays, from top to bottom:
- Zacchaeus, the tax collector who climbed a sycamore tree to get a better view of Jesus and, after receiving Christ’s invitation to do so, welcomed Jesus into his home
- Cornelius, a God-fearing centurion who is considered to be the first Gentile convert
- Lydia, a seller of purple cloth, whose encounter with Paul and his companions led to her conversion and that of her entire household
- Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus
- Pots representing the “vessels of the Lord” or prophets called to point others to Jesus Christ
- Handel’s “Messiah” as inscribed on the left pot
- The 12 tribes of Israel as represented through jewels and symbols on the right pot
“Isn’t it beautiful how Jesus meets us where we are?” Wilcox reflected as he shared Zacchaeus’ story, depicted at the top of the panel.
“The beauty of Jesus Christ is that not only does he invite us to come unto him, but he is willing to meet us where we are, whether we are up in a tree or whether we are in a house that is considered the house of a sinner — he will come and meet us.”
Additional panel 3
This panel is situated second from the right and pictures, from top to bottom:
- Caiaphas, the high priest who charged Jesus with blasphemy; Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who presided over Jesus’ trial; and Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple of Jesus and a member of the Sanhedrin, who later provided the tomb for Jesus’ burial
- The father who brought his son to Jesus to be healed and, after declaring his belief, asked God to help his “unbelief”
- Stairs with engraved symbols pointing to the progressional nature of the beatitudes Jesus taught during his sermon on the mount
- Mary Magdalene, the first person who saw the risen Christ and is likely to have been the first person to testify of his resurrection
Of the beatitudes and their progressional nature, Sweat said: “It’s this process of recognizing your insufficiency, repenting, coming unto Christ, being filled with the spirit, turning and loving others, becoming meek and merciful, becoming pure in heart (and) becoming a peacemaker.”
And then when those attributes start to develop, Sweat said individuals will feel the adversary “turn against” and “persecute” them. To which he said Christ teaches, “And blessed are you if that happens, for so persecuted they all of the prophets that came before you.”
Additional panel 4
Found on the right end of the window, this last panel depicts, from top to bottom:
- The day of Pentecost when the Holy Ghost descended upon Christ’s apostles and disciples like a blowing wind, many days following his death and resurrection
- The gift of tongues, as portrayed through inscriptions of Christ’s name in 40 languages and the apostle Thomas testifying of Christ in sign language
- Spirit prison, where some individuals are seen in despair, looking right to the things of the world, and a young boy is seen looking left, finding hope in the realization that there is already a key on the door
“Christ is the key who will unlock the door to release our spirits eternally,” Holdman said. “And that young boy sees that, and so on his face is hope, where, in contrast, these other individuals who are looking away from the Savior and looking to the world to bring them peace and hope are not finding it, nor will we ever find it there.”
