Three Cheers for THE KING!

Hello there, this is Dick Foth with Foth and friends, stories from the road. What a road it has been the last ten days in the United Kingdom and in effect around the world. We saw yesterday, on Monday the 19th, a stunning expression of what monarch means, a stunning expression of what devotion and care means as hundreds of thousands of people line the streets of London and on out to Windsor. As Queen Elizabeth II was being remembered and laid to rest. Yesterday, in a profound and beautiful way, the baton was passed, the crown was passed from Queen Elizabeth II to King Charles III. What was crazy to me to say this was an amazing feeling of connection. It was as I watched, it was like a flashback to a particular day for me. It was August 15, 1947 in the Nilgray Hills of South India. Three years before my sister and I are two years before my sister and I had come with our parents as missionary educators to South India. Now to understand this connection, the British had ruled India for 190 years, first through the East India Company and then just under the crown, if you will. It was part of the empire. The old saying was the sun never sets on the British Empire. In 1947, they got their independence and there was a parade. Here we are at 6,000 feet up in the tea plantations in this town called Canora. I was five years old. My sister, Luan, was almost nine years old and we're walking in this parade carrying newly minted Indian flags if you will, waving them, everybody else. There were military pieces, there were bands and all of that. What I didn't realize at age five was that we were watching the empire march out of India. Ninety days later, we're playing on the playground at our school there and they called us in. My sister tells me, I don't remember this part exactly, but called us in to be allowed to listen on the radio to the wedding of Princess Elizabeth, to this Danish Greek prince by the name of Philip Mountbatten. Six years later, on June 2nd, 1953, in Oakland, California, my sister tells me that they let us stay home from school in order to watch the coronation of the then Princess to Queen Elizabeth on a black and white TV. Hundreds of times over the next 70 years, that young queen would hear this song played and sung. Here it is. Then 15 years later, in June of 2002, my sister Luann, her husband Bill, my wife Ruth and I, were in the UK and we were driving west from London out to South Wales and we came across the Bristol Channel and into this city called Newport, they got docks and all that sort of thing. There were banners everywhere and there were police blocking off roads and barriers and we pulled into a parking lot, got out and said, what is this? They said, well, this is the Queen's 50th Jubilee, the 50th year of her reign and she's coming to town in about an hour. So we said, well, we got to see this. So we went over and stood with a bunch of people on a knoll and they gave us now not an Indian flag, but a Welsh flag. This wasn't for independence, but it showed solidarity as part of the United Kingdom and so there we stood waving these Welsh flags and union jacks at this point, watching the Queen drive by with Prince Philip with the Duke of Edinburgh in their car and there she was in her bold lime green outfit and her lime green hat. Articles, I read, said that she loved wearing those bold colors to bring brightness and hope to the people of the United Kingdom and it was an amazing moment and now she's gone. Is she by all lights, by every article, everything I've heard was the solid, the constant in a turbulent world over the last 70 years in that part of world and I think around the world is a symbol in a lot of ways. She was a daughter, she was a sister, a wife, a mother, a grandmother. She had all those seasons combined, if you will, and always for the last 70 years, the Queen. She had great devotion and affection for her subjects as you could sense with hundreds of thousands of people lining the street for folks in the last few days to view the casket where it was placed for the state memorial. Sometimes the queue, the line was five miles long, people standing through the night and day in order to just pay honor to her. So her devotion and affection for her subjects was great. She loved animals, from all I could tell, she embraced her horses, she loved the races, she had her own horses and ponies. She loved Balmoral Castle and Scotland and perhaps I don't know if most of all but way up on the list were her dogs, the corgis, these little dogs. She had I think 50 of them over the years. The editorial cartoonist Clay Bennett on September the 9th drew a picture of a corgi with a medallion around its neck with UK stamped on it. He's on a leash and he's looking back over his shoulder and the leash is lying on the ground. There's no one holding the other end but a moment for the United Kingdom. It's interesting because monarchy in our country the United States is a foreign word. I mean that's not what we're about. We have a whole country in part designed because we didn't want a monarch. The structure of governance is that way. It's called separation of powers. You can have a president for four to eight years. You can have senators for any length of time that they can get voted in but they have six year terms. In this institution called the United States Congress, the legislature, you have what is called a bicameral house which is the senate with a hundred people because every state no matter how small or large has two senators. But on the other side of the building you have the House of Representatives where people serve for two year terms and again they can serve as long as they can get elected and they represent a certain number of people. I think now it's somewhere between 600, 700,000 people. So for example a state like Wyoming that doesn't have seven or a thousand people would have one congressperson, one representative where the state of California would have dozens if you will. And so the idea behind that including Supreme Court those people are selected or chosen for life. So you have this separation of powers which from my sense looking at the Constitution, looking at the Republic would say well that's genius but I have to admit this. I'm in tension because I live in a Republic, I love voting in a democratic system and I'm this follower of Jesus and Jesus identifies this Jesus of Nazareth who I consider to be the Christ from the biblical scriptures. When he comes he comes with a message, he comes to a small country. Palestine, Syria at the time was called that under Roman rule but to the Israelite people he comes and they have been expecting a king, they were used to kings. They didn't always have a king but when they saw other people around them had a king they wanted a king. So almost 1100 years before Jesus they got a king his name was Saul that didn't work out so well and the next king was chosen he was David and in Israel's history he was the greatest king they had and the succession of kings following him was not that great for the most part say the least and so they kept waiting for this king to come and Jesus comes with this message. Turn around here's the kingdom. If I'm a Jesus follower I have this tension living in this country of loving to be in a republic but being designed for a king. I spoke to my friend Jeff Lucas just a couple of days after the Queen's death and it was interesting because Jeff is from the UK and he brought up their whole life and I wanted to ask him about what he felt and what he thought and how he saw the Queen and he said this very interesting thing several very interesting things but one in particular about her and so I just said Jeff talk to me about what you're thinking and feeling and this is what he said. Well it's absolutely massive I can't really measure the significance of this because in a 48 hour period deck we had a new Prime Minister welcome by the Queen at Bermoral Castle and then two days later we lose Majesty the Queen and we have a new King King Charles III I think people have asked me what does this feel like and I think the best way of saying is imagine a president a much beloved president who managed to unite the entire nation that's a stretch maybe but then imagine that person being in the White House for 70 years of service and then they're gone and particularly in the turbulent times in which we find ourselves this is a huge moment for the UK but we find ourselves in a situation as follows of Jesus for being grateful for the faith and the service that the Queen expressed. I heard you say something the other day that was so powerful about the Queen and her own faith and you read it I think you some thoughts her words could you share that with some contact yeah certainly and I think this is really important because the coronation which may take another year or so to organize the coronation is a religious event the monarch is the head of the Church of England and the danger is that we can think that they're just going through the routine because that's the way it's always been the Queen had a very deep personal faith she talked about how she had personal accountability before God about how Jesus was not just a philosopher a general a leader but rather the savior who came to forgive and is alive today and an evangelist Leslie Griffiths who spent some time with her he said the name of Jesus flowed from her lips in such an unforced way it was effortless it was brilliant bear in mind that she's living in a multicultural situation where that that singular passion could have been offensive but she managed to frame that in a way that was beautiful she had a deep love for Christ and may she rest in peace and rise in glory absolutely thanks you what a fascinating person Queen Elizabeth the second was a sovereign by all human rights in her own right in her own land but a sovereign a monarch who bent her knee to a higher monarch to the one that lasts way more than 70 years that lasts forever I just I'm captivated by that I'd encourage you to think about what that means going forward what does it mean to live in a place where we don't have a King but where we if we are followers of Jesus serve one and what does that rule look like in our lives I just love how Jeff ended his comment to me when he spoke about the Queen and he said it this way Queen Elizabeth rest in peace rising glory and I say amen to that I