Queen Elizabeth and a worship song
In 1977, California pastor Jack Hayford and his wife visited England during the Silver Jubilee — the twenty-fifth anniversary — of Queen Elizabeth’s 1952 accession to the throne. They were struck by the grandeur of the celebration and the manifest joy of the people in their monarch. While there, they visited Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill and famous for the magnitude and stateliness some non-UK people today know only through watching Downton Abbey. Driving away from the palace, overcome with awe, Hayford found himself reaching for words — language that would transpose the weight of the earthly experience into the key of heaven. As he stretched, the word that seemed most fitting to describe the stunning magnificence of the palace and how it pointed to the superiority of the reigning Christ was majesty. According to a California newspaper’s retelling of the story, As the Hayfords pulled themselves from that regal palace and drove away, Dr Hayford asked his wife to t...