[Music] so [Music] merry christmas very early on christmas morning still very dark outside but we have a full day of services ahead in the cathedral so we're waking the neighbors on the piano which ronnie's tuning but uh it's good to play a christmas song to you to say merry christmas wherever you are in the world join us at the deanery in canterbury cathedral on this christmas morning as we say our early morning prayers together and we wish you and all those you're spending christmas with the happiest of days let's go around to start our prayers here by the christmas crib and i'll sit down beside it with all the santa figures from the south of france which are here scattered around on the table and in the uh areas that i'm near are the angel gabriel and mary and joseph and then the donkey and the ox and the shepherds here around and a multitude of animals including lily who's got in there somewhere and even winnie and kemi but uh the shepherds have their sheep oh duckies there too uh and russell crowe uh and a turkey so not quite the same color as darcy but one of the santos in the same way and just coming in the distance with their camel the three wise men on the way here so the crib figures have come out for the 12 days of christmas and then a little bit of epiphany let's say our prayers on this christmas morning oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise you laid the foundations of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands blessed are you sovereign god creator of heaven and earth to you be praise and glory forever as your living word eternal in heaven assume the frailty of our mortal flesh may the light of your love be born in us to fill our hearts with joy as we sing 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 one of the traditional psalms for christmas morning is psalm 19 and we're going to use that as our son this morning what we call a proper psalm rather than the normal psalms for the 25th morning of the month psalm 19. the heavens are telling the glory of god and the firmament proclaims his handiwork one day pours out its song to another and one night unfills knowledge to another they have neither speech nor language and their voices are not heard yet their sound has gone out into all lands and their words to the ends of the world in them has he set a tabernacle for the son that comes forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber and rejoices as a champion to run his course it goes forth from the end of the heavens and runs to the very end again and there is nothing hidden from its heat the law of the lord is perfect reviving the soul the testimony of the lord is sure and gives wisdom to the simple the statutes of the lord are right and rejoice the heart the commandment of the lord is pure and gives light to the eyes the fear of the lord is clean and endures forever the judgments of the lord are true and righteous altogether more to be desired are they than gold more than much fine gold sweeter also than honey dripping from the honeycomb by them also is your servant taught and in keeping them there is great reward who can tell how often they offend oh cleanse me from my secret faults keep your servant also from presumptuous sins lest they get dominion over me so shall i be undefiled and innocent of great offence let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight o lord my strengths and my redeemer it's quite easy to see why that psalm is chosen with the angels in the heavens ringing out their message to the shepherds and singing their gloria and the first verse the heavens are telling the glory of god and the firmament proclaims his handiwork but then all creation joins in and the psalm gives that sense of heaven and earth rejoicing in unity at the birth of the christ child the anointed one the son of david so let's go to our lesson for today i'm going to change over to the other side of the fire trying not to disturb leo who is enjoying uh a huge treat of a fire this early in the morning and stretched out so that every aspect of him can receive the heat so we are this day in the gospel given to us to read on this day christmas day traditionally and it's the first chapter of the gospel of saint john yesterday we told the story of the shepherds coming we told the story of mary and joseph's journey and the stable and the manger and we shall go on to tell the story of the coming of the wise men but this morning the lesson sets out the eternal depths of all that is happening and john sets that out in the first verses of his gospel in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god the same was in the beginning with god all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made in him was life and the life was the light of men the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it there was a man sent from god whose name was john he came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him he was not the light but came to bear witness about the light the true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world he was in the world and the world was made through him yet the world did not know him he came to his own and his own people did not receive him but to all who did receive him who believed in his name he gave power to become children of god who were born not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of god and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we have seen his glory glory as of the only son from the father full of grace and truth the journey of mary and joseph attempting to find shelter in bethlehem which we looked at yesterday and also the journey of the shepherds down from the mountainside where they were keeping their sheep down to the stable where they found the angels words fulfilled with the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in the manger that's the human side of this story but this is a day when that which is human and that which is divine are united the christmas blessing may christ who by his coming at christmas time gathered into one the things of earth and the things of heaven that beginning unites that human story and the vocation of the blessed virgin mary as she gives birth to jesus and lays her child in the manger and the story of god's son being born into the world which the angels are proclaiming different dimensions of the story but here this morning the depths of what that heavenly dimension means stretching back out of time to earns well well back so that one ceases to count in time for as the psalmist says a thousand years about as yesterday in the sight of the lord and so that millions and millions of years are as nothing can compared with the completely timeless nature of the eternal word giving proportion to our humanity and a human life to that dimension so that in reading this this morning we are stretching ourselves beyond time to a world which is beyond understanding in a human sense but at the same time our spirits revive at the good news on christmas morning and we ourselves are filled with that good will and peace to all which the angels sing of all our carols sing of that all our lessons speak of that the journey up to the coming of the christ and the journey since the coming of the christ as through the work of the holy spirit and the grace of the holy spirit those gifts are lived out in those who claim that promise and are given power to become children of god it's for everyone the true light who came into the world and was rejected and lifted up and offered himself and then released that spirit which we claim on this christmas morning as we do every day with the gift of each new day we've got used during uh uh the lockdown to many different words but we've also got quite used to the greek alphabet in which uh letters the new testament was written and those words like delta and omicron are words that we've letters that we've grown used to hearing they mean a danger by the various variants but they are enclosed by two other greek letters alpha the first letter of the alphabet and omega the long o in greek as opposed to the short one in omicron our alpha and omega i am alpha and omega the beginning and the end and the journey in eternal terms has no beginning and no end for those are words about time but for us every journey every venture in our human state has a beginning and an end and alpha and omega means that the beginning and the end are held in god's hands and every second in between of that journey is held in that way too with jesus walking beside us those greek letters say much more than time itself but they are there to show jesus at the beginning of the journey jesus at the end there's a long hymn which we sing we sang it at the carol service uh on both occasions yesterday and the day before it's a translation of an ancient latin hymn thought to be written at about the year 350 a.d and translated by various people its tune is called divine mystery divinum mysterium and it tells that story of the eternal word and his being made flesh so that he could live a human life of the father's heart begotten air the world from chaos rose he is alpha from that fountain all it is and has been flows he is omega of all things yet to come the mystic clothes ever more and ever more each verse ends with those words but the verse that follows reflects psalm 19 by his word was all created he commanded and was done earth and sky and boundless ocean universe of three in one all that sees the moon's soft radiance all that breathes beneath the sun more and ever more and on it goes telling our story he assumed this mortal body frail and feeble doomed to die that the race from dust created might not perish utterly christ's saving work in his humanity those verses solemnly tell in musical form and rhythm from the original latin and translated into many languages in different ways that unity of heaven and earth which we read about on this christmas day in the christmas gospel from saint john's gospel and folding the stories of the nativity with the much wider dimension of heaven's part in it and in our lives as we embrace every new day [Music] oh so [Music] foreign foreign yes [Music] this is a day when two women were born they didn't know each other uh but they were both born on christmas day one of them was dorothy wordsworth the sister of william was worth the perish he was born on the 25th of december 1771 at cockermouth in cumbria and dorothy is known for her journals her diaries which give us clues to the atmosphere and creative beauty around the lives of her and her brother william and also part of the time with their friend samuel taylor coleridge for the three of them lived together for a while in in a happy companionship of creativity and dorothy's journals both of al foxton which is down in dorset and her grasmere journal in the lake district in 1800 from 1800 to 1803 all of that gives the context for poems like the daffodils but the descriptions of nature and her words inspired the poet laureate from 2009 to 2019 carol and duffy to write a poem about one of dorothy wordsworth's birthdays on christmas day at winter time in the lake district in the cottage that they had with samuel taylor coleridge the enjoyment of the three of them on not only a frozen christmas day with fires lit and everyone enjoying the festive season but also uh enjoying everything that their companionship meant and here is a little bit of caroline duffy's poem wordsworth lies a bed in his night shirt and night cap excuse me rhyming cloud with crowd the cat at his feet licks that have black and white fur we should have lily here rhyming purr with per well that's very much so with leo in front of the fire today the kitchen table set for this festive breakfast an unseen still life cream in a brown jug the calmness of bowls and spoons one small round white loaf and a tame robin are we used to that a flame on the windowsill its name in its song they walk to the lake where wordsworth skates like a boy in heaven on earth a tangerine sun illuminating the hour into manuscript later the lamps are lit in the parlor hot punch fumes in a copper pan the feast mutton pie buttered parsnips potatoes and a halifax goose there's much more but it gives you the flavor of doris's enjoyment of her birthday which is also christ's birthday and the world around her is making merry in a snowy landscape with a frozen lake that words himself can skate on like a boy in heaven on earth and the other woman that i want to mention this morning who also had a birthday experience on christmas day is cosima wagner the wife of richard wagner who woke on christmas morning 1870 to her birthday on the banks of lake lusan in their villa there and she heard music and outside her bedroom on the staircase wagner for his wife's birthday had written some music which is named after their son siegfried it's called the siegfried idol a very beautiful piece of music indeed and he'd hired a little orchestra to stand on the staircase and play it for the very first time and she woke to the beautiful sounds of the siegfried ital a christmas present an imaginative christmas present that we will be receiving and and and giving um throughout the day i'm sure but at the same time we remember those first notes which in the end wagner incorporated into his opera secret into beautiful songs to be sung on the stage but the first time those notes were heard were not to voices but to soft instruments playing on the staircase and the same joy came to cosima wagner on her christmas birthday as came to dorothy wordsworth as she described natural settings and the festive christmas dinner table so we come to say our prayers on this christmas morning and we are praying for the life of the church in all its denominations in response to the gospel throughout the world for all leaders of their own communities and bring your own prayers as we say prayers together we of course pray for archbishop justin and for bishop rose of dover and our for bishop emma at lambeth and we're using for the first time today the collect for christmas day almighty god you have given us your only begotten son to take our nature upon him and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin grant that we who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace may daily be renewed by your holy spirit through jesus christ our lord amen as we come to say the prayer our savior taught us each in our own language we remember all those whose work will still keep them very busy today helping people in dangerous situations and also combating the pandemic in frontline health care may god's spirit be with them say we say together 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 reflection for your own thoughts and prayers this morning [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] yes [Music] me [Music] [Music] hey [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] oh [Applause] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] me [Music] foreign [Music] so may christ who by his coming at christmas time gathered into one the things of earth and the things of heaven fill you and those with whom you spend christmas and those whom you love with the spirit of peace and good will 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 this christmas day and always amen i think before i go over to the cathedral and get fine music ah i'm going to just play you on our old piano here a christmas song of joy joy to the world the lord has come let earth receive its king and the music well of course it's by handel [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] happy christmas to all of you and may you all have the most wonderful day with uh those that you're celebrating with or being in contact with if you're having to spend christmas by yourself i hope that you'll get many messages of encouragement and also have a a festive board perhaps not quite like dorothy and william wordsworth and samuel taylor coleridge but nevertheless something that reminds you of christmas gone by and also and you enjoy today and look forward to the future when perhaps the pandemic will have been controlled completely and we can become as we used to be before together in great numbers on christmas day [Music] [Music] so [Music] you