Thoughts after a Funeral

Recently I attended two funerals in successive weeks. An older friend whom I love dearly was at both of them. After the second one he turned to me and said, " We don't want any more of these for a while. Two in as many weeks, once they start ........!" and he shook his head. I know what he meant, nobody enjoys going to funerals. Many attend out of a sense of duty but even those who go because they want to honour the departed usually go reluctantly.
Funerals seem to me to be important, not only because we attend to give thanks for a life lived, but also because they should (even momentarily) remind us of our own mortality. We hear the words of the psalmist -

Our days are like the grass;
we flourish like a flower of the field;
when the wind goes over it, it is gone
and its place will know it no more.
 
and we instinctively try to forget them as soon as possible.

However, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ transforms the Christian's view of death. Two quotes that spring to mind here -

George MacDonald in an Unspoken Sermon on the Temptation of Christ -

"Without the bread he will die, as men say; but he will not find that he dies. He will only find that the tent which hid the stars from him is gone, and that he can see the heavens; or rather, the earthly house will melt away from around him, and he will find that he has a palace-home about him, another and loftier word of God clothing upon him."

And C.S. Lewis -

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”

I suppose that it would prove to be puzzling and maybe even contentious but I cannot think of a better or more simple epitaph than "Hatched"