How Did Heaven Receive Diana?

How Did Heaven Receive Diana?

By Dennis Peacocke

As the multitudes all but worshipped Princess Diana in her death, I found myself thinking about what Diana herself was going through before her Maker and Judge. Was He praising her for her life and obedience to Him? In what ways had she testified on earth to the life and death of His son, Jesus Christ? Had she honored and kept His commandments, human weakness not withstanding? Did the host of heaven honor her entry in any similar proportion to the grief being displayed on earth with her departure?

Why didn't we hear these kinds of questions being asked? I'm sure, in some quarters, they were being asked, but not by any public figures of whom I am aware. Indeed, these kinds of questions challenge our humanity with a perspective that levels all our earthly shrines and our independent and rebellious values.

Princess Diana was a beautiful woman, a loving mother, publicly given to certain causes now politically correct, and yet mercilessly hounded by the press. She ran with the world's "beautiful people," and the elite of the world of popular culture obviously really cared for her, but who was Diana before the Lord?

Is it unkind to ask such ultimate questions? I personally was impressed with her public poise and vulnerability. Her patience with her adulterous husband and absurdly difficult royal duties amidst the scrutiny of the world's media was extraordinary. I believe she truly cared for people in pain; nevertheless, death, the ultimate reality, demands from our lives that we grapple with the ultimate questions.

Did she ever press the AIDS patients, to whom she gave her human compassion so freely, with ultimate questions about their soon coming appearance before their Maker? And how did she encourage the poor to break out of their personal bondages of sin so as to sow seeds of action which could break the cruel chains of poverty and hopelessness? Where was the hope and the remedy beyond the assuaging fact that someone very rich and very famous cared enough for them to make a public appearance and raise some money? I applaud Diana's identification with those in pain; what I am questioning is her willingness to speak about the politically unpopular spiritual solutions to that pain.

Diana had heard the gospel numerous times. Did her life evidence that she both lived and accepted it? Is Jesus "bigoted' to require such things, and is it insensitive and culturally inept of me to ask? Diana, apparently, was enthusiastically ensnared in fornication, and possibly at the brink of bringing royal approbation to an Islamic husband. What Christ taught on these issues leaves us in pain relative to her life.

I'm sure I would have liked her had I known her and fully identified with her humanity, realness and courage. That is not the point. The question is this: how did Jesus, who demonstrated supreme indifference to man's quest for popularity and acceptance from the culture shapers receive her? Obviously, I don't know. What I do know is that Christ warned us about the approbation of man. He said:

"Woe to you when all men speak well of you..." (Luke 6:26)

The Princess lived a semi-tragic life. The media forced upon her a transparent one. The real issue is, thirty-odd years of popularity against eternity's values, where public opinion and political correctness mean nothing. Diana is now being judged by another measuring rod and that is the bottom line.

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