Why Do We Mourn Departing Friends

Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed! Alleluia!  The pandemic fears of this COVID-19 time have cast a dark shadow across the joy and peace of the Easter season.  Sadly, Christians living in such a society have fallen in step, towing the line that death is the absolute worst thing and to be feared above all else.  Are we not celebrating our Lord Jesus Christ's victory, who by His resurrection has conquered death and the grave?  Did not St. Paul write, "'O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:55-57). I find these words of Isaac Watts (1674-1748) to be the necessary splash of cold water in my face. Let us continue to confess with conviction these closing words of the Nicene Creed: "And I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life + of the world to come.  Amen"   The following link is William Billings' (1746-1800) setting of Watts' [alt.] text, stanzas 1, 2, and 6: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw6fNABBsCc 

1.
Why do we mourn departing friends,
Or shake at death's alarms?
'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends
To call [us] to His arms.
2.
Are we not tending upward too
As fast as time can move?
Nor [should] we wish the hours more slow
To keep us from our love.
3.
Why should we tremble to convey
Their bodies to the tomb?
There the dear flesh of Jesus lay,
And left a long perfume.
4.
The graves of all His saints He bless'd,
And soften'd every bed;
Where should the dying members rest,
But with the dying Head?
5.
Thence He arose, ascending high,
And show'd our feet the way;
Up to the Lord our flesh shall fly,
At the great rising day.
6.
Then let the last loud trumpet sound,
And bid our kindred rise;
Awake, ye nations underground;
Ye saints, ascend the skies.