Queen Elizabeth II poses on her Coronation day in 1953. Photo: AFP
By Sir David Moxon*
Opinion - On Christmas Day 1939, when England had been at war with Germany for three months, King George VI gave a speech.
The broadcast included a poem by Minnie Louise Haskins:
"I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year/ 'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.' / And he replied, "Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the hand of God. / That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.'"
At the time, the nation still bore the scars of World War I, in which more than 9 million British and Commonwealth soldiers had died - 18,000 from Aotearoa New Zealand. We, England, and many Commonwealth countries lived in the uncertainty, privation and death that loomed with the country's declaration of war against Nazi Germany on 3 September, 1939.
In the midst of war-torn Europe, the King's well-known faith statement inspired a nation.
But it was the 13-year-old King's daughter, Princess Elizabeth, who had given him the poem - she thought it would be helpful in lifting the hearts of millions at that terrible time. It was a sign of Elizabeth's Christian instinct already forming, even then.
The Queen's mother was also a devout Christian, and used to make a retreat at the Anglican monastery at Mirfield every year. That Community of the Resurrection centred the Royal Family in an Easter faith year after year through the Queen mother.
Queen Elizabeth as a child at Balmoral. Photo: Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Mirrorpix via Getty Images
This is the kind of faith that shaped Elizabeth from her very earliest days and all her life. This is the grain in the heartwood of her character. Perhaps one of the best tap roots of this core spirituality is the text found in 2 Corinthians 6:4 and following:
"As servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses;
"...In purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love; in truthful speech and in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness in the right hand and in the left; through glory and dishonour, bad report and good report; genuine, yet regarded as impostors;
"Known, yet regarded as unknown... sorrowful, yet always rejoicing."
You can sense the Queen's life and faith witness in every line. Hers was not a fairytale-cosseted faith - it was a faith within the real world, with all its hope and doubt, all its triumph and tragedy. Every Christmas for a lifetime, millions were uplifted by fresh expressions of this in the Queen's Christmas message.
We know that everything changes and ends. We know that things do not always go according to plan. We know that life is not always fair. We know that pain is part of life. We know that people are not always loving and loyal all of the time.
Nevertheless the Queen, in her prayerful attitude to her family and her political vocation, has shown us all how to rise above the strife and chaos and has offered us a clearer view of the way through the tangles and shadows of the world. She showed us all how to evoke this same spirit in others, so that the heart of a nation, of a Commonwealth, is enriched and strengthened.
The Queen distributes Maundy money during a Royal Maundy Service at Blackburn Cathedral in 2014. Photo: AFP
I exchanged greetings with Queen Elizabeth at a garden party for the Anglican bishops of the world at Buckingham Palace. I was struck by her calm and her graceful aroha: many people have said that she made you feel royal, by being with her.
This calm comes from a deep place inside, from a peace the world cannot give. This is a calm that is so crucial at the heart of politics and society as a whole. It provides a safe still place for the whirling world to centre itself in terms of statehood, and a deep pool from which to refresh its core values. Without this kind of role model, we are diminished at the centre of public life.
Elizabeth's peace came from a verse like 2 Timothy 1:7: "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."
From a frame of mind like this, the late Queen invited us to uphold the Treaty of Waitangi that her great-great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria had pledged with us; she was the focus for unity of a large and various Commonwealth of Nations; and she was a fount of wisdom, continuity and resilience in a turbulent world.
Queen Elizabeth became a witness to the greatest human values by bearing them symbolically and visibly in herself her whole life. Thanks be to God.
*Sir David Moxon is the former Anglican Archbishop of the New Zealand Dioceses.