good morning and welcome on this monday of patch of holy week to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral it's as you see a spring morning and the sun is shining on a host of golden daffodils which are heralding and trumpeting the arrival of spring in the northern hemisphere but wherever you are in the world enjoy your time with us and bring your own concerns as we pray for each other during this holy week and follow the way of the cross day by day up to good friday itself and then beyond we're still praying very much for the people of burma myanmar this morning and also you will have concerns across the world as we come to say our morning prayers during this holy week o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise let your ways be known upon us your saving power among the nations blessed are you lord god of our salvation to you be praise and glory forever as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief your only son was lifted up that he might draw the whole world to himself may we walk this day in the way of the cross and always be ready to share its weight declaring your love for all the world blessed be god father son and holy spirit blessed be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind and as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence oh god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our psalm on this 29th morning of the month is psalm 139 oh lord you have searched me out and known me you know my sitting down and my rising up you discern my thoughts from afar you mark out my journeys and my resting place and are acquainted with all my ways for there is not a word on my tongue but you o lord know it all together you encompass me behind and before and lay your hand upon me such knowledge is too wonderful for me so high that i cannot attain it where can i go then from your spirit or where can i flee from your presence if i climb up to heaven you are there if i go down into hell you are there also if i take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea even there your hand shall lead me your right hand hold me fast if i say surely the darkness will cover me and the light around me turn to night even darkness is no darkness with you the night is as clear as the day darkness and light to you are both alike for you yourself created my inmost parts you knit me together in my mother's womb i thank you for i am fearfully and wonderfully made marvellous are your works my soul knows well my frame was not hidden from you when i was made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth your eyes beheld my form as yet unfinished already in your book were all my members written as day by day they were fashioned when as yet there was none of them how deep are your counsels to me oh god how great is the sum of them if i count them they are more in number than the sand and at the end i am still in your presence search me out o god and know my heart try me and examine my thoughts see if there is any way of wickedness in me and lead me in the way everlasting a wonderful sound of god's presence to begin our holy week but morning prayer day by day in holy week for now has left the gospel of saint john and is taking us to the way in which sint luke unfolds the activity of jesus and his disciples day by day through this week so i'm reading from sin luke chapter 22 and beginning at verse 1 now the feast of unleavened bread drew near which is called the passover and the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how to put jesus to death for they feared the people then satan entered into judas called iscariot who was of the number of the twelve he went away and confed with the chief priests and officers of the temple police how he might betray jesus to them and they were glad and agreed to give him money so judas consented and sought an opportunity to betray jesus to them in the absence of a crowd then came the day of unleavened bread on which the passover lamb had to be sacrificed so jesus sent peter and john saying go and prepare the passover for us that we may eat it they said to him where would you have us prepare it he said to them behold when you have entered the city a man carrying a jar of water will meet you follow him into the house that he enters and tell the master of the house the teacher says to you where is the guest room where i may eat the passover with my disciples and he will show you a large upper room furnished prepare it there and peter and john went and found it just as jesus had told them and they prepared the passover and when the hour came jesus reclined at table and the apostles with him and he said to them i have earnestly desired to eat this passover with you before i suffer for i tell you i will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of god and he took a cup and when he had given thanks he said take this and divide it among yourselves for i tell you that from now on i will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of god comes and he took bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them saying this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me and likewise the cup after they had eaten saying this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood but behold the hand of the one who betrays me is with me on the table for the son of man goes as it has been determined but woe to that one by whom he is betrayed and they began to question one another which of them could be it could be who was going to do this the beginning of the passion narrative according to luke and let's think of one or two things because many of these events will be much on our mind particularly in our reflections on good friday itself but for today let's look at this scene [Music] there is first of all this absolute intention to be in the holy city where the final destiny and vocation of jesus as the anointed one of the house of david who has already entered the city once seated on the donkey and he is now having gone away as we saw uh in st john's gospel to hide himself again for there's great violence around and there is a nervousness amongst the disciples and in jesus himself about his fragility as a human being like you and me and that kind of anxiety before a really crucial occasion and challenge is natural to our humanity but for the moment everything is going step by step as he answers the call of the one who sent him as he keeps saying and this is beginning to happen now in luke's gospel so he says to two of the disciples and it's almost like something secret which has been arranged perhaps as the finding of the cult was arranged uh when we thought of that yesterday on palm sunday from bethany some kind of plan has been made and maybe the sisters and lazarus were involved in that we don't know we don't need to know the gospels actually connect with each other and shine light on each other and this week we shall be moving from one gospel to the other though luke will carry us through morning prayer for the next four days and jesus has sent peter and john the shall we say the two leading disciples who will play a part in this as the gospels knit together but they have a special mission in luke's gospel today they have to go and prepare for the feast of the passover and this is the day of preparation when the lamb must be slain and then eaten in the feast of the passover now happily this year there's been a confluence between our holy week and those of the jewish faith keeping their passover and we remember that as we come together because of course jesus lived out his life in that faith in the rhythms of that face and then gradually his vocation for the whole world began to take shape in his ministry and his mind until later in holy week as we'll see there is a moment when that hour comes but for the moment we're back on that day when peter and john are sent into the city and they're told here's the secret sign that a man carrying a water jar will meet them he will know who they are they for the moment don't know who he is and he will go into a particular house and they will ask him the question where where is the place where we are to eat the passover with our master and they follow him into a house and in an upper room upstairs there is a room ready furnished for all this to happen and then the scene changes and we are at the table there will be two offerings this week of jesus of his body broken the first is not an i am image it is actually a physical activity which is a gift a gift to us he breaks a loaf of bread and says this is my body given for you and then gives them the cup this is the blood of the new covenant my blood given for you what they understood then around the table who can know what the church has understood of that sins has been a living act of remembrance and we shall remember that but the second giving of the broken body is yet to come and that will happen for us in remembrance on good friday itself but around the table still is one who has fallen prey to temptation and jesus knows it all these things we shall reflect on in the present tense during this week as we complete our journey of the cross but this morning on this first day it's enough to remember jesus sentence of enjoyment of being round the table with the twelve how high i have longed to eat this meal with you and then the memory of it which the church will reenact over and over again in the present tense recreating those moments all of that on this day the first day that we will walk the way of the cross together in this holy week following palm sunday yesterday and we live in a world which is struggling with all kinds of crises of pandemic where we have never been so conscious of ourselves as members of one human family on this home of the earth which god has given us the creator whom jesus calls abba father and whose will he is accomplishing by all that is happening this week let's think of some of the things that have happened on this particular day march the 29th in the past i'm going first briefly because there are two bigger dates that i shall think of at length but briefly in 1461 the bloodiest battle ever fought on english soil was fought today in the town of titan in north yorkshire it was part of a civil war here in 1461 which has been known as the wars of the roses a war fought out between the aristocratic houses and royal houses as they became of lancaster and york and they were called the roses because the emblem of york was the white rose and the emblem of lancaster was the red rose but on this day 28 000 men lost their lives in that battle an enormous number from the small population of england at that time and we remember that and remember that civil war in a community most communities across the world have had civil war and bloodshed and violence and for those facing violence today as in burma myanmar this morning we pray with all the the energy that we can muster and world leaders also act with all the energy that they can muster for civil war is a grievous division of a community and then we remember in a happier way that on this day in um 1871 queen victoria opened the royal albert hall what a place of gathering for this nation and so many events have happened in there many of them great musical events or pageants which are trying to demonstrate something most wonderfully so we give thanks for the life of the royal albert hall and long for it once again to be in action when we are able to break out of the restrictions of this pandemic 1912 the last entry in captain robert falcon scott's diary was actually given and of course no one knew that at the time for he and the last survivors of that tragic antarctic expedition could not move because of the blizzard around them and the diary was found a year later and his last entry the end cannot be far for god's sake look after our people that diary found in the snow a year later when the bodies of scot and the other few survivors were found and then in uh 1974 some chinese farmers discovered quite by accident the terracotta army of 8 000 clay warriors buried to guard the first chinese emperor and since that time of course it's become very famous indeed and some of the warriors have traveled and we remember seeing them here in an exhibition and we remember the enormous numbers of that i've never been to that part of china to see that but i'm sure some of you will have so we remember that remember um also in uh i should have said in 1827 um beethoven's funeral in vienna ten thousand mourners came to give thanks for the music of that the wonderful composer who bridged the classical music with that of the romantic era as well and then i wanted to give thanks on this day for two people the first of them i'll do it in the order of of not chronological but the audrey motto which i want to speak about them the first of them is through edwin lutchens who was born on this day in uh 1869 and was seen to be at that time the and some would still think so the greatest english architect after sir christopher wren an amazing architect and when one thinks of the enormous number of houses uh country houses that she built but but all kinds of other things and uh salutations that the house in sandwich is one of those houses quite near to here just a few miles down the road with its garden around it and gardens around the houses became a great feature of the edwin lutkin's way of being an architect mostly because he was working on a project and got to know gertrude jikel the great garden designer of that time and together then as friends they worked almost as a partnership and created what has become known as the english garden not of the grateful clipped formality of bedding plants before but the way in which a garden can become itself with the house and have lots of green growth of creation going about it and in the midst is the house which both complements the garden and the garden complements the house and salutations is a a case in point but i suppose monstered wood which he built for gertrude gertrude jiko is one of the great places now i could go on and on about uh uh latin's architecture the the um uh british embassy in washington for example is one of the places that he built so many buildings in new delhi and he would design them on a piano liner going out and back to india at that time but most of all perhaps i should mention even queen mary's doll's house in 1924 he built that but it's on permanent display now in in windsor um but uh the the most uh significant sign of uh legends is the simplicity of the cenotaph in white hall so many asks for a monument full of statues and all kinds of activity and at the end of that devastating conflict latchings simply planned the simplicity of that cenotaph which is etched in our minds from so many acts of remembrance and is standing there simple at the heart of this nation's government as a longing for peace in a world that so badly needs it and the importance of the act of remembrance which jesus sets before us around the supper table with his disciples and then lastly before we say our prayers on this day in 1788 charles wesley died and of the two wesley brothers charles is the one best known for preaching the gospel through his poetry and his hymns buried uh in uh the parish church out of marylebone in in london and it's his grave is evident there and uh although he and his brothers very much his brother rather that very much the founders of methodism uh at the end of his life he had never left the church of england and summoned the the uh vicar of saint marilyn and said to him john harley the man's name was sir whatever the world may say of me i have lived and i die a member of the church of england i pray you to bury me in your church yard a nice link between two uh christian denominations who have always had a a fellowship with each other and never more so than today but a fellowship cemented by the oh many more than 6 000 hymns that charles wesley wrote and like isaac watts so many of them are still in the hymn book i'll just mention a few and can it be that i should gain an interest in my saviors but a wonderful hymn to sing jesus christ is risen today the great easter hymn christ whose glory fills the skies are mourning him where the sun coming up now onto me over the roof of the table hall here and through the third trees uh is exalted as a sign of christ come out thou traveler unknown known as wrestling jacob that one come now long expected jesus born to set thy people free hail the day that sees him rise and ascension him hark the herald angels sing a christmas hymn jesus lover of my soul let me to thy bosom fly a hymn of rather like our son moving into the into the heart of god lo he comes with clouds descending one of the first things that we sing in the christian year an advent hymn oh for a thousand tongues to sing rejoice the lord is king soldiers of christ arise ye servants of god your master proclaim and perhaps my favorite of all his hymns o thou who came is from above here it is in the hymn book i'll just read three verses of it because it's one of the great sacramental hymns but it's also a hymn of vocation oh thou who came is from above the pure celestial fire to impart kindle a flame of sacred love on the mean altar of my heart jesus confirmed my heart's desire to work and speak and think for thee still let me guard the holy fire and still stir up thy gift in me ready for all thy perfect will my acts of faith and love repeat till death thy endless mercy's seal and make my sacrifice complete that him sung it so many confirmations all donations and ordinary services is a hymn of vocation and wesley's hymns charles wesley's hymns were marked by the insistence of the universality of god's love a richness of scriptural illusion and a variety of metrical form all of that we give enormous thanks for on this day because his poetry stays in our head and teaches us theology as hymns always do if they're good hymns so let's say our prayers and see what the calendar has for us first of all on this day we're praying for the diocese of bari in the church of nigeria and that's in the kaduna province so we pray for all the people there and this is a day in our diocese where of course we pray for justin our archbishop who's here with us for holy week bishop rose of dover bishop tim at lambeth and uh this is one of the days when the diocese asked us for consciousness of listening and discerning on the way so we're praying again for steve konis our mission and growth advisor and his ministry on this day so let's say the collect for this day almighty and everlasting god who in your tender love towards the human race sent your son our savior jesus christ to take upon him our flesh and to suffer death upon the cross grant that we may follow the example of his patience and humility and also be made partakers of his resurrection through jesus christ our lord are men so in your own words in whatever language we all join together in the prayer our savior taught us our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever amen moment of silence now for your own prayers and concerns on this monday of holy week christ crucified draw you to himself to find in him a sure ground for faith a firm support for hope and the assurance of sins forgiven and the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the holy spirit be upon you upon those whom you love and those whom you would pray for today and always are men