Introduction

The state funeral of her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II was remarkable. We paused to watch the scenes of pageantry and procession, and to hear our late Queen preach.

What’s that? Oh, I know the Archbishop of Canterbury preached at the funeral service (you can see his sermon here). But in a way, the Queen also preached on Monday. Because she chose five particular hymns that she wanted choristers and congregation members to sing at her funeral service, so that people watching around the world would hear and take note.

There were many that she could have chosen. But she chose five hymns that teach us about one world which is passing away, and another which will never pass away. They were appropriate for the end of her earthly reign as Queen. And they were hugely appropriate given what the Queen believed as a Christian.

Maybe as you watched the Queen’s funeral, you were reminded that this world is passing away, and that we are passing away too. All of that is desperately sad. We don’t often stop to think about it, do we; but a bank holiday forced us to stop what we were doing, and face the fact that someone who, for many of us, has been there for all of our lives, has now died. Maybe it brought back difficult memories for you: memories of opportunities missed, or of happier days in the past, or of loved ones who are no longer with us.

If that’s you, I think the Queen was preaching to you. I should say at this point that I never met the Queen; so I cannot say that she ever divulged the precise reasons for her choices of hymns to me. I am not a royal biographer in disguise. But I’m writing as a Christian, and someone who knows and loves the same King that she knew and loved; and that’s why I’m pretty confident that the Queen knew what she was doing when she picked these five hymns.

I’d love to share them with you, because I think that they express truths from the Bible which have power to banish our sadness, and bring us hope.  Being a Christian is all about having hope. It’s not a fingers-crossed, it-might-be-all-right-in-the-end sort of hope, but a certain hope, of something better to come. The Queen chose hymns that explain Christian hope, because it’s the hope that she had, and she wanted others to have it too, in the depths of this world’s sorrows.