The Day I'll Talk to the Queen...

A strange atmosphere is at present shrouding the whole of the United Kingdom. It began about midday yesterday, Friday, April 9th, 2021. Thank goodness such an announcement wasn't released eight days earlier. It could have gone down as the cruellest April Fool's joke anyone would have thought up.

Suddenly, everything in the Media had changed. Before yesterday, the centre of all attention was focused on the British-made AstraZeneca vaccine and whether there is a link between it and the few deaths which occurred following a blood clot in the brain. And so, arguments for and against this theory kept on swinging back and forth, baffling the experts. And that is despite in a recent poll, 69% of the British population say that far too much fuss was made about the vaccine-clot link, while only a mere 16% disagree, while a further 15% weren't sure.

The AstraZeneca was invented at Oxford University.

Having received my first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, I'm eagerly waiting for my turn to receive the second dose, and in no way would I allow such a controversy to get in between! Especially if the stats show just one to four blood clot-related deaths in 1,000,000 recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine.  

However, through means of the daily feed, we are told that at the time of writing, there were a total of Covid-related deaths equalling 127,040 here in the UK. Not a single victim named. No faces, no familiarity. Instead, it's all about numbers. Just numbers. And not a single name appearing on the remotest corner of any newspaper page. And so, the Grim Reaper never takes a day off. Rather like Santa Clause on Christmas Eve, he goes roaming around the globe, but instead of giving out presents, he takes one human life after another at a shockingly high rate. And he's not even polite enough to first knock on the door!

Then the news comes in that HRH Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh had just passed away. One news anchorwoman changes out of her brown outfit to don a black one. And male correspondents, journalists, reporters, and all others involved in the Media, including those behind the scenes, all strip off their current ties to make way for their black ties. Others who feel more comfortable wearing an open-neck shirt suddenly produce a black strip of cloth like a rabbit out of the magician's hat. It was as if everyone was expecting the Grim Reaper, sooner or later, to invade one of Windsor's apartments without an invitation.

And as death will come upon all of us without exception, most will see death as just a natural part of the evolutionary process. And it goes to show how cold and pitiless Evolution really is, as it pushes on with its survival of the fittest. This process of Natural Selection - could this be why a tourist who visits a Safari Reserve can only do so in a protective jeep or similar vehicle? Any lion, tiger, or other carnivores would have no special respect for a tourist. Rather, the satisfying of her hungry stomach and the welfare of her cubs would always be its priority.

And the same applies if our Queen and Prince Philip had ever visited the park. They too would have had to ride in the jeep. The big cats would never favour this royal couple above everybody else and spare them. The same applies to a visit to the local zoo. London Zoological Gardens has a VIP entrance which is separate from the public entrance. But once in the park, none of the animals born in captivity would give this couple any more attention than everyone else. Rather, the keeper will order the Royals to stay out of the tiger's pen, just as he would have ordered anyone else to stay out. Likewise, with our supposed closest relative, the primates, none of them would bow to the Queen any more than they would to any casual hipster.

Therefore, for the whole nation, along with its former colonies, to go into mourning over the death of just one person - whilst over 127,000 die of a viral disease without a single bat of the eyelid. According to the Daily Mail newspaper of Saturday, April 10th, 2021, the first 35 pages are fully devoted to Prince Philip and the whole of the century of his life. Then on page 36, Specsavers Opticians placed a full-page advert pic of a delicious vanilla ice cream cone, complete with a Flake bar, before the paper begins to cover other, less important news, including a set of national statistics on the AstraZeneca vaccine. 

Is ice cream good for eyesight? Food for thought, perhaps.

But here, I would like to set the record straight. I have never had any issues with the Monarch or her kin. I believe that over the decades she has done a wonderful job as Sovereign. Likewise, the Duke of Edinburgh had always been her backbone, supporting her throughout her entire reign, especially during difficult times when Charles and Diana divorced and afterwards she was killed in a car accident. He stood by her, and quite likely, had played a vital role in preventing the institution from disintegrating.

But what I find so incredible is how just one man's death brings the whole nation mourning - while many died within a month of a positive test result for Coronavirus - and each victim of the virus looked upon merely as a statistic without a name. And yet the Media goes into overdrive when just one man dies. Nothing new here, this sort of monarch-worship is not confined to Britain. Rather, this had been ongoing for thousands of years elsewhere.

The Royal Couple, taken in 2019.

But like the virus, death does not discriminate one person from another. It will get us all eventually, that is if each one of us is a descendant of our first parents, Adam and Eve. It's that awful reality, so out-of-sorts, so unnatural, and so invasive. It has caused families to grieve throughout history, it can cause a whole nation to mourn, yet when a wicked or cruel man dies, there is often a sigh of relief - as the environment is at last free from his grip, power or influence. I wonder how many felt relief when news of Adolf Hitler's death made the headlines?

As death doesn't discriminate on who it will hit next, yet there is one man who had defeated death and is alive now, Jesus Christ, who is of Jewish descent. And one day, after every believer alive throughout the ages is resurrected, we will be like him, for we shall see him as he is. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Great Equaliser.

The Revelation of John the Divine is the very last book of the Bible. It's also known as the Apocalypse by the Catholic church. The book consists of letters written to seven churches located in what is now western Turkey. These letters are then followed by a series of prophecies of the future, with the establishment of God's eternal Kingdom. The whole book is centred on Jesus Christ himself. Its author, the apostle John, experienced a series of divine visions while he was exiled alone on the Greek island of Patmos. 

In chapters 21 and 22, John describes a glorious city, the New Jerusalem, "coming down out of heaven." It's a city of tremendous size, which indicates a very large population. The city will be surrounded by a wall with twelve gates which will never be shut. This may indicate access to the rest of the world, glorious in beauty with an abundance of lush vegetation, along with mountains, valleys and streams of pure, drinkable water, as the whole Earth is restored to an Edenic paradise. Somewhere in the city, the throne of God is established, and with Jesus Christ as the Lamb of God enthroned, there will be easy access to the throne where anyone can approach, without hindrance or any form of special preparation, and talk to God face-to-face, like a man talking to his friend.

Apparently, 24 more thrones look to be established, twelve on each side of God's throne. One set of twelve will be seated by all twelve tribal heads of Israel - each of the twelve sons of Jacob. The other twelve will be occupied by the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ. Each will be easily approachable, with no need for special preparations beforehand.

I believe that next to the throne of God, there could be a crucifix. If so, then this will be placed there to remind everybody that they are in his presence because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ which had defeated sin and death altogether. 

Not a single "good deed" done by any of its inhabitants have ever earned a place in this city. Instead, by atoning for every sin by dying on the cross, every inhabitant has God's own righteousness imputed into his soul whilst still in his old life, and this imputation comes by faith in the risen Christ. In other words, God had saved every single believing individual now alive in the new world.

And this includes the Queen and Prince Philip. Not because of their former status but because of Christ redemption on the cross. It also includes every Christian I have known personally, and it includes my beloved wife and me.

Alex will be a ravishing beauty, her face shining. Likewise, both the Queen and Philip will look as if they're in their early thirties, and each one of us will be approachable. There will be no security guards surrounding them and no need for escorts.

And thus the Queen is walking arm-in-arm with her husband. Alex and I approach and all four of us can engage in a conversation, with then relating to us on what the life of a monarch was really like, while I relate to Alex's past illnesses and how she's so wonderfully delivered. Since there's no shortage of time and nobody is in any hurry, the happy chat between us can last for quite a while. We would never get bored with each other, nor suffer any form of impatience, and there will be no "we must move on" attitude.

I can imagine a table placed near the banks of the river which will flow from God's throne. At this table, the four of us can sit, and enjoy eating the fruit that grows continually on the riverside trees. Then, great men of the Bible are often seen and there are times when we can talk to them and allow them to relate about their former lives. The prophet Daniel, for one, can tell us what it was like spending the night in a den of lions. David can tell us how he felt when he killed Goliath. Gideon tells us how he doubted God's faithfulness and how he tested him twice using a fleece. Samson tells of the day he had a haircut. Noah then relates to what it was like taking care of both his family and all the animals on board the ark for a year. Finally, Abraham comes along and points to the cross standing next to God's throne. And to God we all bow.

How the Cross of Christ levels everything and everyone! Maybe that was meant by a prophecy that in him, valleys shall be filled in, every mountain and hill brought low. The crooked ways made straight and the rough ways smooth. The gross inequality between the death of Prince Philip and the victim of Covid will be levelled off and made equal. All it takes is to believe in the Death, Burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and salvation will come to us all in all equality.