Heaven’s Light, her Guide - Bishop of Portsmouth's sermon for the Queen

St Paul writes: ‘Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord.’

Deputy Lord Lieutenant, Lord Mayor, dear friends: may the peace, comfort and strength of Christ be with you all.

It is right and good, and greatly to our comfort, that we gather in this Cathedral Church, which was honoured and visited by Queen Elizabeth.

We gather to commemorate her life and to give heartfelt thanks to the living God for all that her reign has given us.

We gather, in the heart of a City which bears as its motto ‘Heaven’s Light, Our Guide’ to seek the light and guidance of the Holy Spirit for all that lies ahead for ourselves and our nation.

And we do bring our whole selves: inner lives that have been shaken by news we knew had to come, but which we never thought would actually happen.

Inner lives in which a complex range of emotions and feelings are present. Sadness and gratitude; old griefs and new. I imagine we will all have experienced a strange blend of memories, thoughts and feelings over the last nine days or so.

My dear friends, whatever you feel, whatever memories have been stirred up for you - as grief and loss have come to visit - may I encourage you to bring everything to the living God in prayer, and to share what is on your heart with those you trust around you? For as the Psalmist writes: ‘Yea, though I walk through death’s dark vale, yet will I fear none ill; for thou art with me.’

Today, sorrow and gratitude, commemoration and thanksgiving, join hands. For, as Dominic Grant puts it so beautifully in words we will sing together in a moment:

“We stand to mourn a Sovereign,

A nation’s guide and friend,

who through long years of tumult

was faithful to the end.

We offer our thanksgiving

for all that she instilled:

Her constancy of service,

Her lifetime’s vow fulfilled.”

Our late beloved Sovereign was indeed ‘guide and friend’ to our nation. Over the last week or so, stories have poured forth of Queen Elizabeth’s wisdom and compassion.

Only days before inviting her last Prime Minister to form a government, pictures were released of Queen Elizabeth, leaning over her walking cane, listening intently to another older person, fully focused on the person before her, with radiant smile and words of encouragement.

Much has rightly been spoken of Queen Elizabeth’s constancy of service, her commitment to duty. But on this day of all days, we will be wise to ask for ourselves of the source of these virtues: her wisdom, compassion, sense of duty and service.

For if these enduring virtues – which we have seen and heard in our late Queen – do not arise from thin air, then what is their source? And how, if we wish to learn from her life, may we drink deeply from the same source?

It is, of course, the same Source to which our City’s motto points.

For without reckoning on her faith in Jesus Christ - Love’s Open Door, God’s Human Face - we miss the deepest key to her lifetime of service, her unswerving duty, wisdom and compassion. All these things that endure, flowed for our great good from her Christian faith and prayerful devotion to the way of Jesus Christ; a way open to each one of us and only ever a prayer away.

In our great loss, my friends, we do indeed give thanks and praise to God that for our late beloved Queen, Heaven’s Light was her Guide.