The Servant Queen and the King she serves Paperback – 2016

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The Servant Queen and the King She Serves was distributed to thousands of churches across the UK in the lead up to the Queen’s official birthday celebrations in 2016. The celebrations included a massive street party attracting about 10,000 people to The Mall in London. Similarly, long before appeals to a particular definition of ‘tolerance’ threatened to limit respectful debate, she laid out a compelling framework for true tolerance and a sharp critique of lazy thinking: Her Majesty also alluded to the current problems in the Middle East saying that the world is now experiencing “terrible suffering on an unprecedented scale”. The comments – rare insights into the Queen’s personal thoughts and Christian faith – came in the forward to a new book, The Servant Queen and the King She Serves, published by Bible Society, HOPE and LICC. In an article 'Defender of the faith' Gillan Scott wrote: "Jesus is the Servant King, but Elizabeth perhaps should be known as the servant queen. For not only has she sought to serve us as her people, but she has also chosen to place herself under authority, serving Jesus as her own Lord and Master and seeking to follow in his footsteps."

I am always moved by those words in St John’s Gospel which we hear on Christmas Day – “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not…” We have only to listen to the news to know the truth of that. But the Gospel goes on – “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God”. Queen Elizabeth says, "Each day is a new beginning. I know that the only way to live my life is to do what is right, to take the long view, to give of my best in all that the day brings, and to put my trust in God...I draw strength from the message of hope in the Christian gospel." In these last months of her earthly life, the Queen had suffered with her own “mobility problems.” But not today. Not now. For my monarch was also my sister, and we’ll see her again, standing on steady legs before the throne of the King she knew, loved, and served.But I shall not have strength to carry out this resolution alone unless you join in it with me, as I now invite you to do. I know that your support will be unfailingly given. God help me to make good my vow, and God bless all of you who are willing to share in it.'

The main dates for celebration are the Queen’s birthday itself, on 21 April, and her official birthday weekend, 10-12 June – these summer dates particularly hold great opportunities for street parties, neighbourhood and community group celebrations, or special church services; all events where the book could be given away easily. However, the book itself is not dated: it simply honours the Queen’s 90th year, so it can be shared throughout 2016. Matt Chandler and Adam Griffin cover these questions and more in Family Discipleship: Leading Your Home through Time, Moments, and Milestones. And we’re excited to offer this book to you for FREE as an eBook today. Here, then, we see that the servant life is not something Elizabeth can live in her own strength. For her, Christ is more than an example to follow, or a teacher who points the way, he is the source of power to live out what he calls his people to do. Indeed, the word ‘readily’ reveals a picture of a God who is eager to bless, who wants to help, a reality so often revealed in the Bible:And so often we have failed to cherish the Scripture that she cherished and have scorned the example of Jesus that she followed. Ac yna yn 2012, cyfeiriodd eto at Dduw yn anfon Iesu ‘i wasanaethu, nid i gael ei wasanaethu’: ‘Ail-blannwyd cariad a gwasanaeth yng nghanol ein bywyd ym mherson Iesu Grist.’ Dyfynnodd y garol brydferth, ‘Ganol gaeaf noethlwm’, sy’n diweddu ‘gyda chwestiwn i bob un ohonom sy’n gyfarwydd â stori’r Nadolig, fel y rhoddodd Duw ei hun i ni mewn gwasanaeth gostyngedig yn yr Iesu: “Beth a roddaf iddo, llwm a thlawd fy myd? Pe bawn fugail rhoddwn orau’r praidd i gyd; pe bawn un o’r doethion, gwnawn fy rhan ddi-goll.” A’r ateb a geir yn y garol, “ond pa beth a roddaf? Fy mywyd oll.”’ Yn ei darllediad Nadolig yn y flwyddyn 2000 nododd fod eglwysi cadeiriol ac abatai, y gerddoriaeth, y ffenestri lliw a’r lluniau a geir ynddynt, yn ein hatgoffa o fywyd Crist. Fodd bynnag, dywedodd: ''gwelir gwir fesur dylanwad Crist nid yn unig ym mywydau'r saint ond hefyd yn y gweithredoedd da caiff eu cyflawni’n dawel gan filiynau o ddynion a merched ddydd ar ôl dydd ar hyd y canrifoedd' It’s no secret that the Queen’s faith in Jesus Christ was of central importance to her. But very little has been written about the particular character of her Christian commitment, or how it fuelled her vision for her role, the nation, and the Commonwealth. It is an idea that belongs to neither the left nor the right. It is rooted in the Queen’s understanding of God’s concern for all human beings, of the example of ‘the child who was born at Christmas with a love that came to embrace the whole world’ (1995). And it is underpinned by the Queen’s biblical understanding of the equality of all human beings under God, and of the calling of all Christians to seek to love all people.