Loss, love and light
Preacher: Revd Dr Donald MacEwan
Readings: Lamentations 3:17-18, 21-26; Revelation 21:1-6, 22-24
My soul is bereft of peace;
I have forgotten what happiness is;
So I say, ‘Gone is my glory,
And all that I had hoped for from the Lord.’
So began our lesson from Lamentations, the name of the book the description of its genre – lament. A crying out in grief, an expression of deep loss. And we gather today following many gatherings and services over the past 12 days because of loss. The death of Queen Elizabeth is the loss of her earthly life.
It is of course a personal loss to her children, grandchildren, family, friends and those who have worked closely with her. Among her family are students past and present of this University – and we acknowledge their personal bereavement.
But the Queen’s death has clearly been experienced as loss by millions of people in Britain and across the Commonwealth and beyond who met her fleetingly if at all, yet who have felt compelled to express their grief and sorrow. Some have laid flowers in royal parks, some stood by the Kingsway in Dundee for the passing of her cortege, some joined crowds on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh last Monday, and of course thousands queued for nearly a day to attend her lying-in-state in Westminster Hall. Those expressing their sense of loss all have their own reasons, but certain reflections have been echoed by many. There was the length of her life, the constancy of her presence, the steadfastness of her commitments. And there was her bearing – the beautiful young woman who acceded to the throne, her poise and serenity, even her inscrutability when delivering the Queen’s Speeches which opened Parliament. Somehow, the Queen fulfilled a human need for tradition, familiarity and calmness in the midst of decades of rapid change.
And on this evening of her funeral, we acknowledge the loss which is death. For all the significance of Christian hope to which we will return, death is real and its effects have rarely been more clearly expressed than in the reading from Revelation we heard earlier: mourning and crying and pain. These are inevitable parts of being human, and all who have lost someone they loved know how hard it can be to pick up the tasks of life after a funeral, and how – unexpectedly, years later even – a sudden wave of sadness can overwhelm us.
But these days of mourning – private and public – have also brought into clearer focus the feeling which scripture knows to be as strong as death – I mean, love.
The Bible expresses the faith of people who knew well – all-too-well – the reality of death, but over and over again it offers the hope that in the midst of loss, God’s love can be more keenly felt. Lamentations puts it this way:
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,
his mercies never come to an end.
While for the Psalmist, it is the Lord that preserves us from all evil; it is the Lord rather than the hills, from where our help comes from. (Though I do not doubt that the hills around Balmoral may well have soothed the Queen during some of the more difficult days she faced, perhaps just us helpful as the sermons she heard in Crathie Kirk.)
We’ve sung already of a love from which nothing can separate us – not troubles or terrors, nor time’s destroying sway. And in the Magnificat, that song of praise and power given to Mary, a young woman appointed and anointed for service – Mary sings of mercy from God to his suffering people.
Alongside loss then, we can place love. But we often experience such divine love through the acts of our fellow-human beings perhaps inspired by heavenly mercy. In all the stories which have tumbled out in recent days about the Queen’s life, one in particular struck me. Terry Waite, who had spent four years in solitary confinement as a hostage in Beirut in Lebanon, had just been released in 1991. He was exhausted, confused, and trying to get to know his family again. There was immense interest in him from the media, sometimes intrusive. The Queen invited him and his family to stay in a house on the Balmoral Estate for as long as he liked. He barely remembers now how often he met her over those months, if at all. But the kindness has never left him.
King Charles too expressed his love in his address to the nation. In strikingly personal words he thanked the Queen for her love, promised to serve with loyalty, respect and love, and expressed his love for Harry and Meghan as they continue to build their lives overseas.
But as we know well, the character of a nation is not created by a constitutional monarch, but by us all. The Queen’s care and kindness were exemplary, but each one of us has our own responsibility – to love the people we encounter, and the planet we share. And we can do so inspired and supported by the unceasing love of God who – in the vision of Revelation – dwells with us, among us, wiping tears from our eyes.
Losses, and love – and light. We see by light: the sun, moon and stars, and countless lights we’ve learned to make from torches of fire in the Gaudie on the pier to the biophotonics labs here in the University. Light is such a fundamental image and metaphor in our faith and wider culture – for thought and reason, wisdom and education, for goodness and comfort. But this evening I want us to think of light as that which draws us forward, light beyond us as in the windows of a home we’re making for, or the lights of a harbour guiding our journey.
The Queen, we trust, is drawn to that place of light we give the word heaven to. Revelation plays with that metaphor of light in its vision of the heavenly city. There is no need for the sun or moon there for God is light enough, and the risen Christ – the Lamb – removes the need for earthly lamps. Indeed, when he was but 40 days old, the infant Jesus was declared by old Simeon to be a light to lighten the Gentiles – as we heard the choir sing earlier. It is my hope as a Christian that all God’s children will be drawn into that place
where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling
but one equal light.
But this light is not only a destination but a giver of direction. It is a light to draw us forward and onward, through sometimes darkling plains,
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight.
Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord is sung at every service of Evensong. We are praying then for the light of truth to guide us in good paths when there seems no helpful way forward; we are praying here for light to guide students through a year or degree to meaningful lives of commitment and influence; we are praying ultimately for the light which no loss can extinguish, whose character is love, which draws us forward with courage throughout our whole life whether it be long or short.
King Charles finished his address to the nation with a quotation from Hamlet, while The Merchant of Venice came to my mind last Sunday. But today, it is Shakespeare’s words given to a former monarch of England, King Henry VI, which seem fitting as we draw to a close this reflection on the day of the funeral of her late Majesty, Queen Elizabeth:
Now, God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.
END