Our present queen, Elizabeth, is a member of a very exclusive club. At the moment along with her good self, I can only find two other queens, Margrethe II of Denmark and Beatrix of the Netherlands who are the ruling female monarchs in the world. Yes there are plenty of queens around but most of them sit beside their husband king in a sort of supportive role, you know, ironing his robes, polishing his crown, making the royal breakfast, getting the royal groceries, rearing the royal children, having the royal pipe and slippers ready every evening. Actually, I'm sure they don't do anything of those things, especially where a servant could be hired instead. But can't you imagine how dull the conversations might be. 'What did you do today dear?' 'You should know, you were sitting beside me all day!' When we cover the family tree of the British Royals, I'm always intrigued by the fact that ER would probably never have been on the throne except for the love of her uncle Edward for Mrs Simpson. In his abdication, her whole future changed and but for that interjection we might have been talking of Charles, Anne, Andrew and Edward in the same way as we consider their distant cousins and minor royals. Elizabeth has been Queen for all of my life, indeed for the lives of the majority of people on these islands and in the past decade or so, she has twice been in our local city though the closest I got to her was on a television screen. Mind you, one little girl form our school waited for hours to see her and present to her some flowers and eventually she was rewarded when Her Majesty stopped, accepted her gift and spoke with her for a few moments. That event is. I'm sure recorded in a scrapbook for ever. Though I never knew her, from all the information we study in school, Queen Victoria seemed somewhat less outgoing and shunned public appearances when possible. I'm sure the early death of her husband, Prince Albert, had a profound effect on her and all accounts record that she wore black for the rest of her life until she died after nearly sixty four years on the throne.
In the Bible, two queens stand out in my memory. Jezebel, the wife of Ahab and daughter of a foreign king, who turned her husband away from the God of the Israelites and took particular offence at Elijah the prophet and his successor, Elisha, when they confronted her of her evil. To call her manipulative would be an understatement and yet she was not impressed when Elijah prophesied that she would be eaten by dogs at the end a finale that eventually came to pass.
Esther, on the other hand, was a woman of deep faith and courageous in her position as wife to King Xerxes, during the captive years of the Israelites. And no doubt because of her faith in the God of her forefathers, she had a strong moral character and a desire, despite the risks, to seek justice for her captive people. So important is she that her story is recorded in the book that bears her name. She is remembered as the Saviour of her people through her actions but in reality it was her reliance on God and her call to all the Jewish people to follow her example that was the catalyst for God's miraculous intervention and their ultimate deliverance.
And so it still is today. God is waiting to supernaturally and miraculously intervene in our lives, and yet too often we choose not to rely on Him and His all encompassing greatness by trying to keep our problems 'in house' and solve them by our own human efforts. That's why the prophet Isaiah writes in chapter 50, 'Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the word of his servant? Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God' and why John, in his epistle, chapter 4 can say with confidence 'And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.'
Each of these queens is remembered in a different way because of the life they lived during their few years on earth. How will you be remembered. And how will God remember you?
