good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of friday the first of april first of a new month but we woke not to spring weather but to a white world at about five o'clock for it had snowed not very heavily here though enough to make the ground and the roofs of the houses white and it's been trying to snow ever since some of it became rather wet snow and has seen most of it away but my virger david at the eucharist this morning when i was celebrating earlier has got stuck in a snow drift on his way from highs to here outside in the countryside we have real winter weather and there's a vestige of snow still at my feet here but we've come as we said we would into the forest of dean as chris irvin and rosie used to call it um and we are here on forest friday to see how the bulbs are doing here beginning to flower here you'll hear a certain amount of excited noise because we have a graduation ceremony for the university of kent in the nave of the cathedral this morning and so there are lots of very smartly dressed young men and young women with their proud parents and proud grandparents and the young men and women are in academic uh dress with the flat mortar boards as we call them and their black gowns over very smart clothes indeed but it's not a very good morning for them so we hope that there's no more snow on the way because uh we had a flurry a bit back and it's rather windy as well david the verger this morning is one of our last virgins standing uh we see the majority of them have gone down with this new wave of kovid it's very clear that the pandemic is still there and although people who've been vaccinated and boosted don't seem to get very serious symptoms it is very much there and we think of so many millions throughout the world in the china for example being locked in a very severe lockdown we pray for that and the dangers of the pandemic we also of course continue to pray for the people of ukraine whether they are at home and in danger of the bombardments in their own cities or they've sought shelter in other lands and hospitality and other houses all of those we continue to pray for in our prayers this morning and you will have other things that you want to pray for so let's uh begin our prayers on this friday morning just before passion tide begins on sunday o lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise hear our voice o lord according to your faithful love according to your judgment give us life blessed are you god of compassion and mercy to you be praise and glory forever in the darkness of our sin your light breaks forth like the dawn and your healing springs up for deliverance as we rejoice in the gift of your saving help sustain us with your bountiful spirit and open our lips to sing your praise blessed be god father son and holy spirit it be god forever the night has passed and the day lies open before us let us pray with one heart and mind as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence so gone set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our son this morning naturally enough on this first morning of the month is psalm 1 blessed are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked nor lingered in the way of sinners nor sat in the assembly of the scornful their delight is in the law of the lord and they meditate on his law day and night like a tree planted by streams of water bearing fruit in due season with leaves that do not wither whatever they do it shall prosper as for the wicked it is not so with them they are like chaff which the wind blows away therefore the wicked shall not be able to stand in the judgment nor the sinner in the congregation of the righteous for the lord knows the way of the righteous but the way of the wicked shall perish we come back to our reading from st john's gospel and we are now beginning chapter 11. we'll talk about the introduction of that as from the last chapter when we come to our reflection for now i'm just going to read the first 16 verses of chapter 11 of saint john's gospel now a certain man was ill lazarus of bethany the village of mary and her sister martha it was mary who anointed the lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair whose brother lazarus was ill so the sisters sent to jesus saying lord he whom you love is ill but when jesus heard it he said this illness does not lead to death it is for the glory of god so that the son of god may be glorified through it now jesus loved martha and her sister and lazarus so when he heard that lazarus was ill he stayed two days longer in the place where he was then after this he said to the disciples let us go to judea again the disciples said to him rabbi the jews were just now seeking to stone you and are you going there again jesus answered are there not 12 hours in the day if anyone walks in the day he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world but if anyone walks in the night then they stumble because the light is not in them after saying these things jesus said to them our friend lazarus has fallen asleep but i go to awaken him the disciples said to him lord if he has fallen asleep he will recover now jesus had spoken of his death but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep then jesus told them plainly lazarus has died and for your sake i am glad that i was not there so that you may believe but let us go to him so thomas called the twin said to his fellow disciples let us also go that we may die with him it's the opening of a story found only in st john's gospel and the whole of chapter 11 becomes part of that story it's an interesting story in so many different ways and we can have several interpretations of various things that are said or done within this story and rather like the rest of saint john's gospel this sign is capable of being a lifetime study but for the moment let's look to see where jesus was when this news came through from the village of bethany and let's also note that the evangelist assumes that we already know something about mary and martha well there's a story of them in luke's gospel and as we've said before this gospel seems to assume knowledge of the synoptic gospels and we remember the story of mary and martha serving jesus or kneeling at his feet and master complaining that her sister was not helping in the house weep that little story is very much part of our consciousness it's not mentioned here it just says bethany the village of mary and her sister martha as though we would know about them but at the same time it then says something about an incident which will appear in this gospel but not yet as though the looking back to tell us something is assuming that we know something already about this we can play with that quite a lot but we have the evangelist speaking to us and at the same time assuming knowledge maybe from the other synoptics or maybe from this story which may have traveled around as quite a long pericope as we say a story on its own which is now being woven into the fourth gospel as one of the signs of jesus where was jesus when this story began well think back to yesterday yesterday we saw him alone alone walking in the portico of solomon's temple and then surrounded by controversy violent controversy where people were picking up stones to throw at him this was dangerous this was a life threat and in the end to escape arrest as it was said i leave alone stoning jesus goes away and we hear that he went right away away across the river jordan to another place where john the baptist was going to baptize earlier on john of course at this point has been executed on the orders of king herod but the evangelist tells us that jesus went there as a place where john used to baptize that he knew already and there many came to him and it's quite clear from this passage that the twelve are there with him as well and at that place many believed in him this is a place which is friendly this is a place where there seems to be no danger the other side of the river and at a place where people who believe in him can come so that the last sentences of chapter 10 or the last sentence many believed in him there that's comfortable for the twelve their masters in no danger they are in no danger and the people who are there are friendly and they believe in jesus and now the message comes from three people whom jesus loves very dearly in the village of bethany and the sisters simply need to send the message to where they know jesus is to say he whom you love is ill and that word isn't the agape word for love it's the filio word for love and later on jesus uses the word philos our friend lazarus is sick asleep and we are going to wake him and at that point we know that there is enormous affection between jesus and the two sisters and their brother lazarus but the disciples sense instantly that that will put them in great danger it will put him in great danger and as that danger becomes very very apparent then uh they begin to remonstrate with jesus you're going back to judea where they were seeking to kill you they don't say you must be mad but it's writ large in the conversation that's going on again and at the end it's thomas eventually when it's quite clear that jesus is determined to take courage for his vocation and return not only to bethany for lazarus's sake but then on to jerusalem where he knows the hour will come and thomas then whose appears here in the gospel for the first time um thomas says let us also go that we may die with him what does that mean die with lazarus or die with jesus is it a gloomy statement is it a courageous statement it's certainly a realistic statement for jerusalem and judea are violent places for their master and also for them and nothing could be more true to what will happen but this sentence is left hanging in the air at the end of this first part of this wonderful story of jesus being called back to the dangers of his vocation by love for three friends and by one who is sick and who he knows will die before he gets up we're leaving that story there but it's full of the sense of the disciples saying no let's stay here in this place where it's safe he will recover if he's asleep he will wake you and jesus then telling them plainly lazarus is dead after the message has arrived he's paused for two days and in those two days he senses that this is the prelude to his own death and his hour will at this point come so all these things are happening within the opening of this story now i want to go to a completely different story and it's one that's well to tell on this day of snow and pine trees around me it's the story of sergei rachmaninoff who was born on the 1st of april 1873. he died in 1943 by then a citizen of the united states he died in beverly hills and he himself had been born to a fairly aristocratic and well-to-do family in the russian empire of the tsars and was brought up in that way and was sent to uh conservatives first the the saint petersburg conservatory of music and then to the moscow conservatory of music where he was seen to be and known to be an expert pianist one of the very finest pianists that would develop we're talking about a russian composer who became a virtuoso pianist a conductor and really the last great representative of romanticism in russian classical music he had learned from tchaikovsky he had learned from rimsky-korsakov he'd learn from the music of the liturgy of the orthodox church to which he was faithful but at the same time he had a personal idiom notable for melodies which sounded lyrical like songs and so many of those we know well probably one of the most famous pieces of all that he wrote is his prelude in c sharp minor and that prelude became so powerful in people's imaginations that it seemed to him that he was as a young man never going to escape from it everyone wanted him to play that [Music] and this uh led him a bit later on to a terrible mental depression various things contributed to that the death of his idol tchaikovsky so suddenly justin tchaikovsky was about to conduct uh in public performance one of rachmaninoff's works and then suddenly tchaikovsky died and rachmaninoff was utterly devastated so at that time one of the graduates i think who's come backwards and forwards here at that time a depression was fed by the fact that his first symphony was performed with glazenoth conducting it in so bad a way that it became a disaster a critical absolute disaster and to rachmaninoff that seemed to be the absolute end of his hopes and fears all his vision in that first symphony came to a catastrophic end by the total ineptitude of glasinoff who probably was drunk at the performance because he was known constantly to be drunk at that time but that mattered not it meant that his symphony lay in ruins and fragments and received a really bad critical review from one of the five composers who was so respected curie who said only demons in hell or the insane in the depths of hell would actually want to hear some music of this sort and it led to a huge mental depression for rachmaninoff which lasted for three years i'm saying all this because we federer and i went in 2019 in i think september or october 2019 to the southwark playhouse to a performance of a musical work of huge imagination and the music itself and the words by dave malloy the whole evening was called preludes describe your day describe my day my day began with wanking [Music] [Music] do every sunday i get lilacs in the mail no matter where i am i must go dressing or new york quite lilacs [Music] and it took place and the the stage was very intimate we were sitting all around it there was a grand piano on the stage and a certain amount of effects but essentially you felt yourself to be very much part of things and everything took place in manila's head for the three months when he went through a psychotherapy with a friend of the family his own family who was himself a musician but also a hypnotherapist and a psychotherapist and he took rachmaninoff and mcmahon off urged on by his uh long term love who became his wife a bit later on uh natalia he went to therapy and we spent that evening in therapy with him and the music was extraordinary partly it was music from rachmaninoff partly it was from dave malloy and partly the music of others but you found yourself completely captivated by all that was going on brilliant grand piano pianist with music of so many different kinds but at the same time brilliant psychotherapist who was played by a woman that night and the therapist who was dealing with tchaikovsky i'm not check i'll see rachmaninoff and back in reality was a man called nicholas dao but the therapist's voice became part of everything that was going on that evening and also the rachmaninoff who was being analyzed who was a different person from the rachmaninoff who was on stage acting out scenes of his life which rachmaninoff in therapy could remember uh all of those things became part of what we were experiencing and the whole evening was called preludes and it's one of the most powerful things i think we've ever experienced in terms of drama and of music we went through the agony of rachmaninoff's depression and then we saw how the therapist took all that apart step by step and how the prelude in c sharp minor haunted him by its success and the disaster of his first symphony haunted him by its failure and that with the death of tykovsky had tipped him over into this darkness where he said i was like a man who had suffered a stroke and for a long time had lost the use of his head and hands for three years he couldn't compose for three years he couldn't really do anything and it got worse and worse and almost the first thing that happens is that the psychotherapist goes through his day jesus says in that lesson are there not 12 hours in every day and we've said also that this story is a prelude to jesus himself going back into the dangers of his own vocation meeting the world again in all its agony as well as all its joy and rachmaninoff in this is being taken through his day by the psychiatrist voice and he's the she says to him um take me through your day and he goes through the first hour and the second hour and often at the beginning he keeps um singing and then i lay down and bed again his body couldn't cope with getting up in that mental state there was no energy whatsoever leave alone mental energy until an hour or two in and cords have begun to sound on the piano and they are chords in his mind which he can't cope with at the moment but will be chords of music that will follow and at the same time there's a sort of chant of the liturgy of the orthodox church undergirding all of this some of those chants he'd put into his first symphony which he could never bear to hear again because of the disaster of its catastrophe and then on he goes and eventually decides he'd get up and he goes into absolute detail of each hour the cooking of the simplest breakfast and his his care in keeping everything clean which itself becomes almost a part of his depression and this mania that he can only deal with certain things and then at some point he he goes to the piano and tries not to play his own music but to play a bach two-part invention and he finds himself playing that but not to his own satisfaction because he could have played it perfectly but now he can't and on it goes through the day right through the hours of the day natalia has gone off to do the work she had to do eventually she comes back he can't face the world everything is utterly beyond him and at the same time the music that he loves and the piano become almost enemies to him he can't even conceive of composing again and then during that musical gradually the psychiatrist voice takes him through scenes of his own life tiny step by tiny step from childhood through so many other events and you see all that acted out on stage and different kinds of music some of his own from his other preludes until eventually the prelude in c sharp minor is um very much a focus of things one goes into the depths with him and one goes also into conversations with friends and in that you you meet friends that like chekhov and tolstoy tchaikovsky coming back from the memory but also the sense of how important to him natalia is and the psychiatrist just leads him gently until eventually you are dealing with his sleep patterns and his mood and his appetite and her intention to reignite the desire to compose and step back once again into the world which really is still in there the vision is still in there but he can't plummet and he as he tries to go into the depths of that he can't and so step by step she asks him to imagine a mountain which mountain should it be she says to him and he says kilimanjaro very well let's think of the mountain of kilimanjaro she takes him in imagination to the top of a mountain and says now you will only have got here step by step and you're looking around at the landscape of snow and clear air and sunshine and all those things which he himself is wanting to embrace again but hasn't been able to think of jesus again on the mountain looking down on the rough seas of the boat earlier in saint john's gospel and how the mountain becomes a sign of being in tune with vision but at some stage even for jesus it's a a wrestle for his humanity to enter once again into that vocation and be faithful to the will of the father for his vocation well here's rachmaninoff now being helped step by step to go back down the mountain and see how to go forward and the uh psychiatrist mentions the things that are waiting for him there and the things that have made up his journey so far and every time she says to him this is quite far on in the therapy how does that feel he answers it feels good and it reminded me as that happened again and again how does that feel it feels good a different experience brought from before and one thinks of the days of creation god saw all that he had created and behold it was very good and that happens on each day in fact on tuesdays it happens twice and uh the the third day of the week and those days of creation are lived out in rachmaninoff's life and then he says to her but how shall i know where to go and she says because of the path your feet have already made a path so far it was your feet that brought you this far is every experience that you've had good and bad which have brought you to this point and your creativity is there right inside you your love for natalia is calling you but also so is and then she mentions the dreaded word the piano and the music how does that feel and he says it feels good and as you see i could go into many many more details but what happens then is that from the mountain as he begins to go down the piano concerto number two and its music begin just slowly and in snippets to flower and if you're in doubt about what piano concerto number two sounds like it's a great favorite of course but you'll know it probably from the film brief encounter [Music] and that lovely film [Music] which became such a black and white favorite has that piano concerto number two going right through it marking moments of agony moments of loss and moments of recapturing what was the path going forward and at the same time where the instances of rachmaninoff's life have been shown to him and the music of the liturgy of the russian church going on underneath for him to pick parts of that too all of those things are there waiting for him as is the piano once again and a marriage to natalia which will last until the day of his death she will go with him when the russian revolution happens they leave russia and go into exile through scandinavia where he's been offered a piano tour and uses that that excuse to to leave russia just with small baggage for good and eventually settles over in the united states and his household becomes almost a symbol of the russia that he knew and loved which other exiles would go and visit i thank and i know fletcher does dave malloy for that musical vision in a reflection which took the audience on that night it had already done so off-broadway in new york had been performed also in virginia and also in vienna and then to the southwark playhouse and then of course the pandemic began so it was coming back in 2021 but had to be done only virtually and the real pleasure of it was to be sitting almost in the psychiatrist's chair with rachmaninoff oneself and seeing how step by step she remade him through the hours of the day so that his past life and experiences in joy and sorrow felt good and there was love waiting for him outside with natalia who would return each day and then their marriage they got permission for that to happen from the tsar and that happened and so from then on their close union and the encouragement of his music the piano once more became a fringe and creativity became absolutely part of how his music which was plumbed from the experiences of the past could then develop and the path was there but the path is always taken step by step we can't as human beings jump from here to over there without the experiences that take a sir so every part of rachmaninoff's beautiful music from then on became something culled from the experiences step by step and the agony of those three years when he could do nothing and the remaking of him at that point so we're talking about how a vision is realized and how it's realized from little instances in all our own lives we're talking also about jesus finding once again his uh his own vocation and the father's will by re-crossing the river with his disciples from the place of safety to go and find that his hour had come at the call and love of friends in need lazarus mary and martha whom jesus loved and that the evangelist makes quite clear we'll go on with that story tomorrow but we thank this snowy day and rachmaninoff for showing us the simplicity of the steps it's also quite by coincidence the day on which in the first of april 1995 our friend the potter dame lucy ree died at the age of 93 and remember how she said about her pots when she was asked why do people like them so much and she said it is because they are so simple and the step by step of the psychiatrist rebuilding the blocks one of the most complicated things in all our humanity to do is done by simple steps and the disciples have been led by simple steps and still are being to realization and to belief which will make them fit messengers to carry the gospel and cause others to believe such as you and me on a day like this and our vocation will go on by simple steps in joy in sorry in disappointments in pain in grief and in glory but at the end the mountain of jesus's own vision is the sign of all that in st john's gospel and then jesus taking courage in his humanity step by step to go forward to jerusalem again with the very very fearful 12 following him well let's say our prayers on this day uh and uh think also of the way in which we're sitting amongst the trees on this forest friday we think of another anniversary because on this day april the 1st in 1841 the royal botanical gardens at queue were first opened to the public and i brought two q mugs out today to register our pleasure in going to queue and seeing the botanical gardens in all their glory at different times of the year well let's say our prayers um we're praying on this first of april in the anglican communion for the diocese of condor in the anglican church of tanzania and within the diocese we're having general prayers today at this time of lent moving into passion tide but of course we pray for archbishop justin and bishop rose of dover and bishop emma at lambeth i want also to pray for a very dear friend of both of us and that's stephen lake and his wife carol stephen was my curat for four years in cherbin and we've kept in very close touch ever since but he was until practically a a day ago the dean of gloucester i'm not sure that he's not still that this morning but this afternoon i'm going to said mary le beauchat in london to see the confirmation of his election as bishop of salisbury and uh i know that that carol and the family will be there full of love for stephen and his new vocation as a bishop and also uh the people coming to support him and preparing for april the 25th since mark's day when he will be consecrated bishop in southwark cathedral so another person for me to pray for today you will have many that you want to pray for yourselves and bring those now as we say the collect for this day the fourth sunday of the fourth week of lent and the colic following the fourth sunday of lent merciful lord absolve your people from their offenses that through your bountiful goodness we may all be delivered from the chains of those sins which by our frailty we have committed grant this heavenly father for jesus christ's sake our blessed lord and savior amen the collect for lent almighty and everlasting god you hate nothing that you have made and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent create and make in us new and contrite hearts that we worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness may receive from you the god of all mercy perfect remission and forgiveness through jesus christ our lord amen so each in our own language we say 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 are men a moment now of reflection of your own on this day oh [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Music] jesus [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] christ give you grace to grow in holiness to deny yourself take up your cross daily and follow him 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 well this morning has been a morning when certainly the cats wouldn't appear but it's certainly not deterred the birds there have been robins and great tits and all sorts of birds flying around everywhere and uh they're enjoying the um clear sky which is now opening up with a little sunshine but i don't think we've seen the last of the snow yet so we say farewell and hope you have a lovely day you