SUNDAY: Bible Study - 9:00 AM | Worship - 10:00 AM | PM Worship - 6:00 PM WEDNESDAY: Bible Class - 7:00 PM ~ 8110 Signal Hill Road Manassas, Virginia | Office Phone: 703.368.2622

                                                                      
           Sixty years ago, last Monday, Britain’s King George VI died.  He was 56 years old.  He retired
to bed at 11.30 pm on the evening of February 5.  Sometime in the night a fatal blood clot prevented him from waking up ever again.  He was found at 7.50 am the next morning by servants.  After Winston Churchill and other members of the government had been informed, an 8 word message was permitted to go out on the news wires: “The King is dead; long live the Queen.”  Princess Elizabeth, then 25, was on vacation with her new husband Phillip in Kenya when her father passed.  It wasn’t until later that morning that news reached the Treetop resort where they were staying.  Phillip was informed, and then he took his wife for a walk in the garden to tell her about her father’s sudden death.  It was a devastating day for her – one that she usually observes each year in private.


            But as it is her Diamond Jubilee year, she was expected to observe it publically – which she did.  She spent the morning with school-children who performed songs for her.  On the news yesterday I watched as a very gracious, lovely elderly lady in a cornflower-colored coat, and a royal-blue hat smiled and nodded as the children sang and danced the song “Time-Warp” from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  I must say that although there is nothing unusual about seeing cute, rosy-cheeked, British children waving the flag of St. George at their Queen.  It was a jarring juxtaposition to hear them encourage her to “do the time warp again!”  It was jarring to hear this song sung for the Queen – jarring to hear it sung for Accession Day – jarring to hear it sung and danced by small children. I was glad they weren’t in costume.

            Of course, if we think about it a moment, expecting the Queen to celebrate her accession day is jarring in itself.  It is, by definition, a day of death, as well of accession.  It is the day her father died.  The press wire could not have said “Long live the Queen,” without also reporting “The King is dead.”  Who throws a party to celebrate the death of a beloved parent?  It is a bizarre overlap of situations, a jarring juxtaposition of events.

            But it is one with which we are not unfamiliar.  Every Lord’s day we celebrate a meal that commemorates a death.  It is a moment which focuses on a bleeding and broken body – not on a victorious empty tomb.  The empty tomb is in our consciousness – without its emptiness there would be little power in the blood and the broken body – but we think not of the folded linen set aside, or the voice of the Angel saying “Why do you seek the living with the dead?”  We think instead about the lash, the lance, the nails, the rough lumber, the reviling crowds, the gasping for breath, His words of love and forgiveness.

            A few weeks ago Scott Chambers began his table-talk with the invitation, “Welcome to this time of fellowship.”  It was jarring to hear this time so described – and altogether perfect.  The word for “sharing/fellowship”, and the word for “communion” are the same word in the original text.  Communion is family time, sharing time.  We commemorate the death of our beloved Brother and celebrate the sacrifice of our eternal Savior.  The King is dead; long Live the King!

            If we are no longer jarred by holding in our minds, simultaneously, our sin, His suffering, and our salvation, we are no longer observing the moment correctly.  If we lose that jolt of incongruity – the unfairness of it all – how will we properly “discern the body” (I Corinthians 11.29)?  If we are no longer jarred by placing ourselves alongside Jesus, how will we ever remember grace?

                                    - Barry Bryson

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