Dead and Buried?

The BBC reported this morning that Richard III was interred in Leicester Cathedral.  Richard, you'll recall, was the last of the Plantagenets, defeated by the forces of Henry Tudor at Bosworth Field.  He has also been cast as one of the great villains of English history, blamed for the murder of his young nephews, the famous Princes in the Tower.  His remains were lost to the ages until they were discovered during the excavation of a car park in 2012.  Now he's been buried with pomp and ceremony.  All well and fine.  But what interested me most in this story was the observation of his successor on the throne, Queen Elizabeth II.  She said that Richard was "sustained by his Christian faith in life and death."  While I'm in no position to comment on the accuracy of this statement, I was struck by what it tells me of the current monarch's deep and abiding faith.

It's been widely known for decades that Elizabeth is a deeply committed practitioner of the Christian faith.  A hint of how she understands her faith can be seen in that phrase "sustained by ... Christian faith in life and death."  Perhaps this was true of Richard, perhaps not.  But one senses it is true of the Queen as she lives her life and she fully expects it to be so after she has died.  This led me to wonder: what does it mean to understand faith as affirming even in death?  It suggests something transcendent, something that cannot be contained by time or space or, as we will preach on Easter, the grave.

How does our faith sustain us, especially in times of trial?  It's a question worth pondering.  And it's a hope worthy of prayer.  For wouldn't it be a blessing to have a faith that will sustain us even after we're dead and buried?

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