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Good morning. A lady at the lying in State in Scotland earlier in the week was asked what it meant to her to be there and she replied ‘Respectful togetherness’. Today that respectful togetherness will gather in over 4 billion watchers and listeners in a single focus, the funeral in Westminster Abbey followed by the taking of the coffin to Windsor and down The Long Walk for committal in St George’s chapel. As a teenage member of my school cadet corps in 1952 I was one of many in unform lining that impressive 3 mile walk from the Copper Horse statue to the entrance of the castle . I stood there, rifle reversed and pointing downwards, eyes lowered, when, to the sound of slow drum beat, the cortege of the late King George VIth passed slowly by. There was the same silence, seriousness, solemnity this week as I, along with so many others, passed the Queen’s coffin in the Great Hall in Westminster. The late Queen was not all seriousness. As Barack Obama put it this week she had a wonderfully ‘wry’ sense of humour. But as the Book of Ecclesiastes says ‘To everything there is a season’ A Time to laugh and dance but also a time to weep and mourn’. And for many the royal sorrow and the nation’s sorrow stirs memories of their own personal losses. In the service this morning there will not just be sorrow, there will be heartfelt thanks for a wonderful life of selfless service to the nation. There will also be expressions of hope in the face of death, a hope the Queen shared. She always made it clear she was there as Queen to serve people of all faith and none but as she said in her Christmas broadcast in 2000 ‘For me the teachings of Christ and my own personal accountability before God provide a framework in which I try to lead my life’. There are many wonderful expressions of that hope in today’s services but for many their favourite will be Psalm 23, ‘The Lord’s my Shepherd’, which will be sung this morning as a hymn, especially the words: Yea, though I walk in death’s dark vale, yet will I fear no ill, for thou art with me God with us not just in life but in that last mysterious journey. The poet laureate, Simon Armitage has written a lovely poem comparing the Queen to a Lily which ends with the words: Whose brightness Holds and glows beyond the life and border of its bloom. For Christians and many others that brightness will hold and glow beyond the border of this mortal life. For so many of us it will continue to glow in lives lit anew by her wonderful example.