Well today’s a special day and we’ve got a special visitor.
After all the prayers we’ve said in this Church for the Queen over 60 years we’ve got her exact likeness before us as part of today’s celebration.
Over 60 years Queen Elizabeth is said to have been seen by more people than any other person in the history of the world.
It’s because she’s lived long – God save her – and that over her reign the world’s mass media has mushroomed.
The image of the Queen has gone all round the world.
But what lies behind it?
From a Christian vantage point it’s the coronation or crowning ceremony which for her happened on Tuesday 2nd June 1953 in Westminster Abbey
On this her diamond Jubilee weekend we’re mindful of that occasion just short of 60 years ago when Elizabeth received a special blessing in the Holy Spirit through being anointed with holy oil at a Christian eucharist.
On her coronation morning a gold ornamental flask, the Ampulla, was filled with aromatic oil and placed on the high altar of Westminster Abbey. The eagle shaped Ampulla (show) and its accompanying gold spoon had been brought with the rest of the Crown Jewels from safekeeping in the Tower of London.
During the Coronation eucharist the Archbishop of Canterbury blessed the oil and placed it in the form of a cross on the Queen’s hands, chest and head saying Be thy head anointed with holy oil: as kings, priests, and prophets were anointed. And as Solomon was anointed king by Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet, so be thou anointed, blessed, and consecrated Queen over the peoples.
The British monarchy is a Christian ministry of service and leadership that starts at the eucharist. It builds on the anointing of Old Testament rulers that signalled their function as people set apart for the protection and service of God’s people.
We’ve answered what makes the Queen the Queen, now another question:
What makes a Christian a Christian?
The clue – the answer - was given us last week at Pentecost.
It’s to be anointed with the Holy Spirit.
God sent his Son Jesus Christ to earth to die for us, to be raised and to pour out God’s Holy Spirit so that the whole world could one day share in his anointing.
Jesus is called Christ, which means the One anointed by the Spirit, and Jesus Christ was anointed so we could share in the Holy Spirit that he has.
A Christian is someone who shares in the anointing of the Anointed One.
In being anointed and crowned the Queen was set apart by God among other things to protect the poor and bring justice to the oppressed at home or abroad. The Queen’s anointing and coronation prepared her for national service in a great succession of Christian and Jewish leaders. Old Testament Kings were crowned after their anointing with a simple gold band. British monarchs have had some of the most splendid crowns in the world.
This week the children of our School made crowns for themselves. This has a message for us this morning. If God is our King and we are his children that makes us princes and princesses in God’s royal court. When you were baptised you were given a great dignity. The Bible says Christians are a kingly people, a royal priesthood.
Just as the Queen will for her whole life be our anointed ruler so we who’ve been anointed in baptism walk tall – we’re God’s children, king’s children.
The Crown marks out the monarch but in a profound sense every Christian is marked out by God’s love. A saintly thirteenth century King of France wrote: I think more of the place where I was baptised than of the Cathedral where I was crowned, for the dignity of a child of God which was bestowed upon me at baptism is greater than that of a ruler of a kingdom. The latter I shall lose at death, the other shall be my passport to everlasting glory.
A good thought to end on. Meanwhile - God save the Queen!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment