Amid remarkable and unprecedented scenes, the last Plantagenet king of England, the last to die in battle, was laid to rest in Leicester cathedral with great pomp and ceremony. 35,000 people attended his wake and archbishops and monarchs were at his re-interment.
Of her predecessor, our Queen commented: “… we recognise a king who lived through turbulent times and whose Christian faith sustained him in life and death.” The monarch perhaps cruelly lampooned by Shakespeare, cut down in his prime, would not have been disappointed at the honour paid to him by his nation. Yet for years, Richard III lay undiscovered under that most mundane of places: a council car park.
Some two thousand years ago another king lay buried in an unmarked grave; just another Jewish insurrectionist executed by the occupying invaders. However, this monarch lay not for years but merely days and claimed kingship not just of England but of all the world. Jesus I we might call Him, mainly because He is the One and Only and there has never been another like Him. He offers His Kingdom not for a horse but for a simple childlike faith that says: “take me!” A faith that will sustain any of us, like Richard, “through turbulent times … in life and death”.
A king in a garden? A king in a car park? Remarkable things happen in unremarkable places and extraordinary events take place at the most unlikely times. You were not a mistake, not an accident or freak of nature, whoever you are and wherever you’ve come from. God loves you and the King of all that is invites you not to His funeral but to His wedding banquet.
This Easter – will you accept the invitation?
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