Cor Unum Abbey

A processional route had been marked off, swept and scrubbed clean, and like all the rest of the city, as lavishly decorated as the devastated post-war economy could afford.

         Elizabeth rode to her coronation in the four-ton Gold State Coach with her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, seated beside her.  She had loved him from a girl of thirteen, married him at age twenty-one, but she had not imagined that this day would come the way it did or as quickly as it came.  Born third in line to the throne, that ranking was expected to shift downward with every child born to her Uncle David, who became King Edward VIII.  Edward, however, was involved with a married woman, and he misjudged the allowances that the government would make for a popular, but playboy, monarch.  His abdication thrust her father into the reigning role he had not sought and Elizabeth, with Edward’s signature upon a page, became the Heir Apparent.

On the morning to which we look, Elizabeth was wearing a beautiful Norman Hartnell gown, embroidered from bodice to toe with seed pearl, and threads of gold, silver, and iridescent silk. The dress shimmered like a fabric diamond, white at first appearance, then golden, and then brilliant pastel images emerging all over it, the symbols of her peoples.  Tudor roses encircled the hem, the Irish shamrock, the Scottish thistle and Canadian maple leaf were represented, and more, including the Australian wattle and the lotus blossom of India and Ceylon.   Like the priests of old, she “wore” her dominions, her peoples, to her crowning, attended by six ladies in silver-white gowns bearing her twenty-food velvet train.

        We are poised to spend the next thirty days in a survey of what all this royal splendor means to us.  We know that we are called to walk humbly with our God, and that there are warnings for us, that we must not lift ourselves up to heights that leave Jesus behind!  We take the lower place, we choose the foot of the table, but there is no height higher than the promise that those who do are given power to become “the sons of God.”  (John  1:12)  We must not let humility be false in us … there is a height where Jesus reigns, and we are at home there.  Nothing on earth or in heaven can compare with the glory that will be seen when Jesus is revealed in His Majesty, and His Bride will be upon His Arm.  We can imagine that all the glittering crowns and golden robes and jeweled swords of earth will be as dime store toys on that day.  There is a preparation, a time of getting ready.  Queen Elizabeth’s Coronation can help us with that.

Ornate it certainly was, really beyond description, but Jesus spoke to us of the clothing of the people of God.  He said that King Solomon in his splendor was not clothed as beautifully as the lilies of the field (Matthew 6:27-30,) and then He made a comparison that we may take to heart: we are clothed by God!  We are clothed by God!   Radiance is one of the Father’s specialties: not only the sun lighting the day, but the way it shines through the veins of leaves and flower petals and on the eyelashes of a sleeping infant … things shine and sparkle on the earth, even in the night sky.  Mr. Hartnell’s gown was even more breath-taking and pretty than it was iconic and symbolic, but the righteousness we wear, the radiance of the Lord that is ours, is more lovely by far.

In the newsreel footage of the Coronation, Elizabeth walks like a star, everything about her shining and luminous.  Even so, she knows herself that the image of Christ in the man or woman of true faith shines brighter.

Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. (Psalm 34:5, NIV)

photo, Wikipedia

Normal Hartnell’s Coronation Gown

Warmest greetings to friends who have read and encouraged this work along the way, and a warm welcome to those who have just “tuned in.”  We are about to embark on a happy, holy season, a privileged time together.  Once, sixty years ago, a well-known and well-loved public figure – Majesty, in fact – took the same journey.

In the spring of 1953, Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher, the Archbishop of Canterbury, composed for Elizabeth II a devotional for her private use during the final thirty days leading up to her crowning.  She had been Queen for fifteen months when the book was completed and presented to her, but now the ceremony of Coronation was at hand.  It was a church service, really, with eye-popping and soul stirring royal magnificence.

It was also, as we will see, an earthly template, rich in symbolic truth, for the majesty that belongs to those who “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.”  (Matthew 6:33) It may be that our perspectives of royalty, of reigning, and of the realm in which we live will undergo a consecration long overdue.  Sixty years ago, on June 2 of that mid-century year, Elizabeth’s life was consecrated to her vocation, and she has lived up to her vows.  Because we don’t make any promises when we come to Jesus Christ by faith … does not mean that there are not obligations of majesty upon us.

The country had suffered through two devastating World Wars.  Inflation and unemployment were still cutting deep into the national psyche, and the worst of the rationing and privations were nowhere near forgotten.  Elizabeth had, only four years before, purchased the fabric for her wedding gown with ration cards and a small behest from the government.

Now the realm was eager to take part in all the color and pageantry of Her Majesty’s Coronation.  Preparations were underway throughout the Kingdom and the Commonwealth. Innumerable councils and committees had formed immediately following the funeral for Elizabeth’s father, King George VI; now all their combined logistics and efforts would be proven.  London was adorning itself with bunting and banners and images of the Queen on everything from post cards to postage stamps, and from biscuit tins to button badges.   A Gallup poll taken at the time estimated that 17 million people would take active part in the celebration, with 7 million hosting Coronation parties and 2 million lining the Coronation route.*

The Archbishop was delighted with the national enthusiasm, and he wanted to do his best to make sure that Her Majesty’s subjects knew what was about to take place in the heavenlies as well as in London … and what that could mean to them.  The book he wrote for Her Majesty has recently been put on display in London, with a collection of treasured religious writings and artifacts, but it is not available to us.  In searching for a copy of it, I came upon an obscure little volume of the Archbishop’s, “addresses interpreting the Coronation.”  It is titled, “I Here Present Unto You …,” which were the opening words of the manuscript he had given to the Queen.

While Elizabeth was reading and praying through her devotional, he was taking every opportunity to bring the glories, and particularly the religious significance, of the ceremony home to every Briton.  In sermons and speeches he talked about the divine responsibilities and spiritual benefits that belonged to them all as she was crowned the fortieth monarch of the realm since William the Conqueror.  Six of these essays are compiled in the book.  Here are a few representative words from it:

“She (Elizabeth II) accepts the responsibility God lays upon her.  She seeks and receives from God, as his anointed servant, strength for her task. 

“Her responsibility is ours too.  God has throughout history called nations, even nations that knew him not, to do a special work for him.  God has not a few times spoken to this nation, laid a mission upon it, and given it the will to obey and the power to perform his call. …

“Events have indeed taken from us much of our power, economic, political, military.  But to this nation, as to its Queen, is left the harder, the humbler, more splendid source of power: to be  . . . what God calls us to be in the world . . .”.

That is why we are here and what we will see during the next month.  There are divine responsibilities and spiritual benefits that are ours, too, for the sake of our souls and for the good of lives all around us.  The unctions of worship and prayer, for example, and the grace of forgiveness and mercy are royal privileges to us, and even a casual reading of Scripture lets us know that they are commanded of us as well.  We neglect them only foolishly … and sometimes selfishly.  Like children hiding in plain sight, if we say we do not have a noble calling, then we don’t have to live up to it!

There is great help for us in the majesty of our calling; Queen Elizabeth, as we will see, was bound by oath and by law to her throne and its tremendous liabilities, but by love she has kept her vows.  So may we keep ourselves in the love of God.  (Jude 20, 21)  Our royal vocation does not require pedigree, except in Jesus Christ.  It does not dismiss any believer because of either poverty or privilege.  Without thinking, we sometimes disavow any royal obligation with humble-speak, when instead, by the true humility of obedience to God, we could step up to the glory and the effort of life in Christ Jesus, our KING.

We have sometimes cast off His majesty and held our inheritance far too lightly.  What we do not have in our mortal flesh, we do have in Him.  To live humbly in His majesty will require all the Regalia of heaven that is given to us, and if it seems good to you and the Holy Spirit, you may attend the commemoration of Elizabeth’s Coronation, not in the spectator seats, but with her and the righteous kings and queens that have gone before her, from the moment she steps into the aisle.

“I put on righteousness, and it clothed me; my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.” Job 29:14, (21^st Century King James Version)