For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Richard II (Act 3 Scene 2)
It is the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare and his influence is still felt all around the world. Perhaps the extent of that influence is demonstrated by the fact that, as I was contemplating the passing of Prince in this sad year of iconic deaths, these lines from Richard II came to mind.
Being honest, I was not a big fan of Bowie or Prince but I certainly recognise and respect their huge musical influence. The obvious devotion they inspired in millions of fans around the world demonstrates that their songwriting and performances touched a nerve and spoke to the hearts and minds of several generations of music fans. I grew up watching The Two Ronnies on a Saturday night and seeing Terry Wogan use his wit and charm to interview some of the most famous (and sometimes awkward) stars of their day. I came to Alan Rickman late in life but he more than brought Professor Snape to life in the Harry Potter films. Victoria Wood was a keen observer of the funniest and most poignant aspects of human nature.
We may not have sat and told sad stories of the death of actual kings this year but we have told tales of the deaths of entertainment icons, with whom many of us have grown up. We have lost musical geniuses, kings and queens of comedy and acting royalty. Hardly a week seems to go by at the moment without another familiar figure from our youth or childhood dying. Whether our collective sadness at these losses comes from genuine mourning or the sense of a loos of our childhoods is open to question.
What is unquestionable is that, as with Richard II, these deaths bring home to us the certainty of our own mortality. Kings and playwrights, comedians and pop stars, actors and world leaders - all of us face the fact that death is an unavoidable reality. We may leave a legacy of music or laughter. We may leave performances that now can be relived on the Internet for years to come. Not many of us will be able to claim that 400 years after our death we have shaped the English language so that many of the commonest phrases and sayings in the language were invented by us. However much we achieve in life, Richard reminds us that death scoffs at all our pomp and pride.
But all of us, without exception, will have some influence on the lives of others. All of us will have the opportunity to serve someone else - be it our children, our friends, our parents our spouses or strangers that perhaps we only meet once. It doesn't really matter whether we have achieved national or global celebrity when we finally shuffle off this mortal coil. What will matter is how we were able to receive and give love. What will really matter, above everything else, is whether we recognised and responded to God's love for us in Christ and allowed that love to shape our lives and impact on those around us.
And the truly remarkable reality in all of this is that, as we receive the love of God for us in Christ, we can defiantly reject Richard's pessimistic view of life. Death does NOT have the final word. Easter tells us that death's sting has been drawn, his victory is hollow, his reign of terror is over. This is good news.
We will lose more icons this year. But none of them will have the influence of the then unknown carpenter-rabbi who died at Golgotha. The story of the death of that King is not a sad story. It is the story that makes life worth living here and now and into an eternal future where death and mourning are things of the past.
