This weekend we are celebrating the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee – and it is well worth celebrating because, for the 70 years that she has been Queen she has been one who has served her people dutifully, one who has always shown integrity and one who, though of course not perfect, has been one that many have been happy to have rule over them.
But of course she won’t be Queen forever. She is getting frailer and increasingly we hear how she has not been up to attending certain functions and needing other royals to step in and take her place. And although we may not wish to think about, we know, just as all the Kings and Queens before her have, she too will sadly one day die.
A little over a week ago there was another special day that some of you you may have celebrated. Or maybe you didn’t because, perhaps as it did me, that very special day might well have passed you by. I didn’t notice anything about it in the papers, nor did I hear it mentioned on the news.
I’m referring to Ascension Day.
It’s a shame that Ascension Day doesn’t tend to garner much attention these days. It doesn’t help of course that it’s always falls on a Thursday but even so it really is a pity that we don’t make more of it than we do. Because it really is a very important day, one that we should most certainly celebrate. For it is the day that Jesus ascended, not only to heaven, but also, far more significantly, to a throne.
A throne on which he still sits.
Jesus is King – and not just any old king.
He is the perfect king, one who rules over us with ‘understanding and knowledge’ [Proverbs 28:2], one to whom we all can gladly submit confident that his perfect rule is one that is without injustice and characterised by his perfect righteousness.
Furthermore, his is a rule which will never end.
Do you remember the words of Isaiah’s prophecy that we often hear at Christmas? It’s found in Isaiah 9:6-7
‘For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.’
At the service of thanksgiving for her 70 year reign, the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, suggested in his sermon that there would be no better way to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee than by following her example and putting our trust in Jesus Christ.
And he wasn’t wrong!
And so, at the name of Jesus may we all joyfully bow the knee, gladly submitting to him who, as well as being God, truly is the King of kings and Lord of lords.
Not forgetting of course, as Queen Elizabeth herself recognises, that he is King of queens too!
Related blogs:
To read ‘Real Power’, click here
To read, ‘Real Love?’, click here
To read, ‘Weeping with those who weep’, click here
To read, ‘But this I know’, click here
To read, ‘But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope’, click here
To read ‘Good Friday 2022’, click here
To read “Easter Sunday – 2021”, click here
To read, ‘The Resurrection – is it Rhubarb?’, click here
To read “Hope comes from believing the promises of God”, click here
To read “Waiting patiently for the Lord”, click here
To read “Suffering- A Personal View”, click here.
To read “Why do bad things happen to good people – a tentative suggestion”, click here
To read “Luther and the global pandemic – on becoming a theologian of the cross”, click here
To read ‘Covid -19. Does it suggest we really did have the experience but miss the meaning?’, click here. This is a slightly adapted version of “T.S. Eliot, Jesus and the Paradox of the Christian Life’.
Some musings 
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