Stephen Unwin, our Australian content editor, is currently in the UK. He wrote this reflection on the Queen’s life in the days following her death.
The Queen showed up
Last Thursday we saw that the Queen’s close family were called to Balmoral. Later that evening I was watching TV in the UK as the BBC interrupted the programming to announce that she had died. The mood during these last few days has been quiet, sombre, and understandably, mournful. Of course, some don’t agree with the monarchy or the idea of the Commonwealth, but I think many people appreciate that the Queen was a special lady who used her position to achieve good. Ultimately, I think most would agree that a family and nation have lost a precious lady.
Many tributes have been paid to Her Majesty The Queen since her death last week aged 96. People have praised her sense of duty, her sense of humour, her sensitivity, and her ready smile. Much, of course, has been made of her service. It is one particular aspect of that service that I’d like to highlight here: her simple desire to be with her people; to be present. This followed, I believe, from her trust and love for the God who became Immanuel, God with us.
Present and correct
I saw the Queen three times. The first time was during Trafalgar Day, when my dad and I watched her sail past on a ship. The second time was when she visited my hometown, using my school’s playing field as the landing and takeoff pad for her helicopter. The third time was on a beach in Norfolk in England where she often went on holiday and enjoyed a well-deserved break.
Seeing the Queen in person was special. After all, she was the Queen! The Head of State of many countries and Sovereign over millions and millions of people. Yet in another way, seeing the Queen isn’t actually that special because many millions of people saw her with their own eyes. When you talk with people, it’s surprising just how many people saw her in person. One survey suggests that nearly a third of people in the UK saw her in person.[1] I asked my own family as to who had seen her and it turns out that my dad, sisters and wife have each seen her on multiple occasions (my wife took the picture above just a few years ago). This desire to be present with people, to be among people, took the Queen on hundreds of trips around the globe for thousands of days. For example, she visited Australia 16 times and New Zealand 10 times during her lifetime.
Looking back, what struck me when I saw the Queen was her desire to be present: her desire to greet people, talk with them, listen to them and encourage them, even if only in a small way. When she visited my hometown, it was planned that she would quite literally fly in and out of my school without greeting or meeting anyone. Instead, clearly to the surprise of her staff, she quite deliberately walked a distance to greet us students and school staff who were stood on the far side of the playing field – she went out of her way to do it. She was present with us.
The Queen was determined to be with her people and this seems to me to be a significant mark of her life and service. During her lifetime, the Queen spent thousands of hours walking along the line of well-wishers, shaking hands with them and exchanging words. Quite simply, she showed up.
And she did this in ways that others were unwilling to.
Just after the Grenfell Tower disaster in London, when 72 people died in a fire, politicians and public servants didn’t show up – but the Queen did.
On many of her visits, the Queen would be ushered toward the ‘important’ dignitaries and officials. But there are many stories of her going out of her way to greet the ‘unimportant’ people; the people usually overlooked. I think that’s an obvious outplay of her love for the God who went out of His way to meet us. The Queen’s life is an example to all of us as we seek to follow Christ’s call to serve our neighbours, to go out of our way to serve the outsiders, outcasts, vulnerable and in-need.
The One who is present with us
In her 2012 Christmas broadcast, she spoke of God the Father sending Jesus Christ into the world. She said, ‘I am always struck by how the spirit of togetherness lies at the heart of the Christmas story’.[2] At Christmastime, we celebrate that God, in the person of Christ, came to dwell among us. And I am sure that the Queen’s desire to be with her people, to be present among them, flowed from her belief in the God who is indeed Immanuel; the God who made His dwelling among us (John 1:14).
In that same Christmas broadcast, she went on to say, ‘this is the time of year when we remember that God sent his only son to “serve, not to be served.”’ I think at least one reason why so many have been so upset and saddened by Her Majesty’s passing, is that she was a Queen who went out of her way to serve her people. Part of that service was the way she was present with people, together with people. Again and again, the Queen showed up. And I don’t think it’s hard to see where her desire to do that came from: the God who showed up for us, the God we call Immanuel.
