Bear with me a little on this post, I’ll get around to the verse.

Above is the front door to Trinity Episcopal Church in downtown Tulsa. A better photograph is posted on the Tulsa Gentleman Blog. I made a comment on his post about what I called a dollar sign to the left of the door above the bench. He responded:

“There are 2 ancient symbols for Jesus Christ, one on each side of the door. The one on the left (that might be mistaken for a dollar sign) consists of the overlaid letters I H S. IHS is the Christogram for the Greek spelling of Jesus (ΙΗΣ- iota-eta-sigma; short for ΙΗΣΟΥΣ) 

On the right side of the doors is another ancient symbol for Jesus Christ, consisting of the superimposed Greek letters chi (Χ) and rho (Ρ), often embroidered on altar cloths and clerical vestments. Also called a Christogram.”

Here is a closeup of the superimposed IHS symbol.

Doesn’t look much like a cash symbol when you look at it closely does it. I first saw the symbol years ago and thought it meant that it takes money to run a church. Hey, don’t laugh. It does!

According to religionfacts.com the symbol is simply called the “Chi-Ro” pronounced “ke-roe.” These are the first two letters for Christ in Greek. It is an ancient symbol that goes back before the Emperor Constantine. He started using it widely when he saw the symbol in the sky before an important battle in the year 312. The symbol is also called the Labarum.

Yet another symbol that has intrigued me for a long time was the following ship.

I could not for the life of me figure out what that meant. Well apparently ships are another ancient Christian symbol. It is called the “Bark (or Barque) of Saint Peter. It symbolizes that the Church is the vessel that transports Disciples safely from the stormy earthly realm to the heavenly realm.

So now we get to the verse for today.

 ²³And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him.

 ²⁴And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep.

 ²⁵And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.

 ²⁶And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm. (Matthew 8:23-26, King James Version)

(from BibleGateway.com)

For other pairings of verse and photographs check out That’s Baloney.