For people of a certain age and interest, The Royal Yacht Britannia was instantly recognisable, and we may not ever have realised that she did not have her name painted on her hull as is the case with most ships. There is a reason for this buried in the past.
The ship’s name was a mystery to all but a few until its christening. When Queen Elizabeth II smashed a bottle on the bow in April 1953, some 30,000 people, mainly shipbuilders and their families, turned out in the pouring rain to hear her proclaim “I name this ship Britannia” for the first time.
On holiday this summer we went to Leith as I had always wanted to visit the Royal Yacht. As an aside, it was a good experience, interesting and enlightening. The fact of the absence of a visible name on the hull caught my imagination and made me think about identity.
For security reasons we wear name badges in some settings while for similar reasons, high profile figures try to remain incognito. World leaders, like Britannia in her heyday, are recognisable without a descriptor while most of us, like the cars we drive, are not. We have names, our houses have names, numbers and postcodes and our vehicles have registration numbers.
Today’s reading from Mark 1 (40-45) records Jesus healing a man and asking him not to broadcast what has happened. Jesus made that request more than once and yet he became known, and his profile grew insuppressibly attractive because of this sense he talked and the good things he did.
Now that Britannia has been decommissioned it would be unreasonable to expect that she is recognisable by a younger generation of British people. Jesus, on the other hand, has not been decommissioned but recognition of him is dependent on those of us who know him drawing attention to what he does, as was the case with the man in Mark’s gospel despite his being told to say nothing.
Are you able to recognise Jesus when he comes over your horizon?
A prayer
Lord Jesus, you are active in many ways around us in life. You have altered our perspective on life and given us cause for thankfulness. Give us the courage to point you out and say to all who will hear, ‘look, there goes Jesus, making lives better and giving hope’. Amen.