Globally there are 10% of people who are over 65 years old, which means that over 90% of people alive today have never known of The UK and Commonwealth having any other Monarch than Queen Elizabeth II.
News of her death has prompted an outpouring of grief not only due to the loss of an amazing person but also due to the loss of a sense of stability and permanence.
Queen Elizabeth II was born less than a decade after World War 1 and lived through things as far back as World War 2 and the American civil rights movement to the invention of the internet and the recent pandemic.
She dedicated her entire life to serving her people and was in many ways the bedrock of British society and someone who drew admiration not just from the UK or the Commonwealth but from all corners of the globe!
The mortality of human life
Yet like us all, she was mortal and although sometimes it felt like she would live forever, she did die. Throughout her life however, she pointed us to another who gave their life in service, one who was the bedrock of her life, the Lord Jesus Christ – the one whom the grave could not hold!
Life is full of change and upheaval, uncertainty and turbulence – and things rarely stay the same. We like to think that we know what’s going to happen and that we can have everything sorted but as the last two years have reminded us, there is so much outside our control.
Whether it is something on a global scale like war, a stock market crash, or a global pandemic or something on a personal scale like a house fire, job loss, or death of a loved one we can never be sure what tomorrow will bring.
This is all sounding pretty bleak but that’s only half the story. The bad news is that we are often powerless in the face of great change and upheaval and that our life is only a blip in the great scheme of time and space.
As it says in 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 24, “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls.”
Yet there is hope! The good news is that this fleeting life is not the end and that while we are living through the tumultuous nature of it, we have someone who is with us every step of the way!
The Hope that sustains
The song “On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand” beautifully captures the hope we have as Christians.
“My hope is built on nothing less, Than Jesus' blood and righteousness, I dare not trust the sweetest frame, But wholly lean on Jesus' name, On Christ the solid rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand, All other ground is sinking sand.”
The one thing (or rather person!) who will never change and who we can always rely upon is God! As Paul says in Hebrews chapter 13, verse 8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”
God’s love, compassion, mercy, judgement, justice, grace, forbearance, and omnipotence have never changed and never will change. God is the same God in the Old Testament and the New Testament. He is the same God now as he was in the garden of Eden and he will never ever change.
During the ups and downs of life, we can rest assured that we have a God who is constant and true, loving and here for us, the only thing that makes sense for us to cling to and who loves us so much that he made a way for us to be able to cling to him.
Hope beyond the grave
No matter what happens in life, whether we are a mail-man or the monarch, rich or poor, healthy or sick, we will all die one day and what really matters is what comes next.
In Matthew chapter 7, verses 24 -27, Jesus tells a parable about wise and foolish builders.
“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
If we accept God’s wonderful offer of salvation that comes through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, then even though we will die, we will not remain dead. We will be co-heirs with Christ and get to inherit the new creation with renewed bodies and be able to enjoy a perfected relationship with God our father!
This life is short and full of uncertainty but the one thing we can count on – and indeed would be incredibly foolish not to – is that God is unchanging and he has provided the one unchanging way for us to be made right with him and be encouraged and comforted during whatever trials face us during our brief time on earth.
Whatever may happen, he is the solid rock on which we stand and his love will sustain us whatever comes ours way!