The Coronation of King Charles III starts with the King being greeted ‘Your Majesty, as children of the Kingdom of God we welcome you in the name of the King of Kings’. His Majesty replies ‘In his name, and after his example, I come not to be served but to serve’. The service that follows is as packed with symbolism and tradition as was the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Few of us can remember a time before the reign of Queen Elizabeth and so her funeral seemed quite pivotal. The symbolism in it that hit me the hardest was the removal of the Imperial State Crown, Orb and Sceptre from her coffin before it was lowered into the vault. Whilst that was happening, the hymn ‘Love Divine’ was being sung – it finishes with the words ‘till we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love and praise’. Those symbols of earthly power being taken from her coffin and placed on the altar hammered home the finality of her death but also that earthly power is as nothing in the presence of the God to whom we are all equal.
At the Coronation, the Orb and Sceptre are given to King Charles to represent the passing on of that earthly reign. He will be crowned with the St Edward’s Crown, last worn at the late Queen’s Coronation in 1953. King Charles has asked for the focus of the Coronation to be the richness brought by volunteers to serve the community. Perhaps that seems strange in contrast with the pomp and pageantry. But the true crown that will last into eternity is not that of (self-)importance or status before others, but the measure of our lives is how much we come ‘not to be served, but to serve’.
Jeff Claxton
