Funeral Music!

Back again after a super week’s holiday with our good friends the Randag family in the Netherlands, and including a great day with our other Dutch friends, the de Kosters. Good friends; good food; good weather; and lots of interesting things to see. The only sad part was having to leave it all behind!

One of the news items that caught my ear this morning was that, according to Britain’s biggest funeral director, Co-Operative Funeralcare, (Christian) hymns now make up only 35 per cent of funeral music.

“So what?” I can almost hear someone ask! Well, there is a sense in which it maybe doesn’t matter that people want secular music played – when the funeral is a secular funeral! However, if a Christian funeral service is requested, then surely that is what should be provided – and expected! When some people apparently request songs such as ­“Highway To Hell" by AC/DC, sadly, from a Biblical perspective, that is exactly the route that has probably been taken.

The survey threw up some other interesting choices of secular music, with “top of the charts” being Frank Sinatra’s “I did it my way”. I can’t really think of a more accurate reflection of a society that – like its Prime Minister – seems to have totally lost its moral (and spiritual) compass. The Bible states, quite directly, that “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.” (Prov.14:12) and it doesn’t require a university degree in sociology to recognise that “doing it my way” simply doesn’t work.

In this bi-centennial anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, it is perhaps salutary to remind ourselves that we live in a world in which, prior to the promised return of the Lord Jesus, death is the ultimate destiny for every living organism – plants, tree, fish, birds, animals yes, and even human beings originally created “in the image of God” (Gen.1:27). It’s a fact of life, and one that we cannot avoid.

In his book The Great Divorce, C.S.Lewis points out that those who end up in hell will be there, not because a loving God sent them there, but because they lived their lives in such a way as to ensure that end for themselves. Indeed, he points out that, as those who have not recognised their own sinfulness (the result of that first sin of Adam: see I Cor.15:22) and accepted the salvation purchased for us at Calvary, on that first Good Friday, being in heaven – in the nearer presence of that loving God Who is holiness and purity – would be as bad as hell in any case!

So where am I going here? I suppose that I am trying to emphasise that the important question is not “What music would I like to have played at my funeral service?”, but “Where will I (the real me as opposed to just the mortal remains) be when my funeral service is taking place?” It’s a question that is, I would respectfully suggest, worthy of your consideration!