It was a first for me. I have taken lots of funerals, but until last Sunday I had never scattered someone's ashes in the sea. It turned out to be a very moving experience.

My friend Brian passed away at the beginning of July. I was unable to attend his funeral service and so it was a privilege to conduct this final act of dedication and celebration. It was the stuff of which memories are made. The rain finally packed up and went home (wherever home is) and the sun broke hesitantly through the clouds - in stark contrast to the note of confidence that radiated from those who had gathered to honour his memory.

Funerals always make me think, and rightly so. As I prepared for this one, I found myself pondering the mystery of life and the question of who we really are. 'Dust to dust and ashes to ashes'; is this what it's all about? If so what does that say, but if it's not then who are we and why are we here?

Recent research conducted by Coventry Cathedral has suggested that the question of identity is a pressing issue for a large percentage of the population, and one that friends of mine have tried to address in their very helpful video series entitled 'Puzzling Questions'. (http://www.puzzlingquestions.org.uk">www.puzzlingquestions.org.uk)

As they are only too well aware, human life cannot be reduced to a National Insurance number or even our chemical constituents. 'From the perspective of biology we are all 70 per cent water and 18 per cent carbon (a similar kind to pencil lead) with additional percentages of calcium (chalk) and iron'. If we are nothing more than an accidental collection of chemicals without meaning and purpose, then human consciousness is simply a physical process and ideas (even these) have no meaningful content whatsoever.

Human experience shows us that we are infinitely more than the sum total of our miraculously designed parts. We are, as someone has suggested 'Nature's riddle'. We can be incredibly creative (Mozart was composing music at the age of five) and yet we can be unbelievably destructive (Anders Behring Breivik told a Norwegian court that his one regret was that he had killed a mere seventy seven people!). We can overcome the most awful disabilities (as the Paralympics are proof of that) and yet we can damage one another in the most tragic ways.

Brian didn't have an easy life. As one obituary puts it: "His early life.... was sad and short on security, and his sister Linda had looked after him when they were abandoned as young children". Consequently then, like lots of others there was a time when he made some bad choices.

But 'Bri' as we all knew him was living proof that human beings have the potential for transformation. Thanks to the support of a loving wife and family, but mostly thanks to his Christian faith, he changed and became such an inspiration that even the current Archbishop of York could send a card signed 'John'.

Brian was aware that he was a 'work in progress'. All Christians are conscious of that but they are also confident that death will not bring this process to a shuddering halt.

And so, as we said 'farewell' to Brian, we reminded ourselves that Jesus has conquered death and has promised his friends that one day they will be as perfect as Him. Great as it's been getting to know Brian in this life then, it's so much more exciting to know that 'the best is yet to be'.

When I see Brian again he will be a carbon copy of Jesus and that's what so great about being a Christian. I know I'm more than a collection of molecules, I'm a child of God.

George Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, has put it much better than I ever could, and so I'll leave the last word to him.

"The impact of Jesus," he wrote "lay in two directions: in his teaching he aroused men to realise their human predicament, and in his life he attracted men to a fulfilment of their humanity."

Rob James is Pastor of Westgate Evangelical Chapel, Pembroke, and can be contacted at [email protected]">[email protected]