good morning and a very warm welcome to the dinery garden in canterbury cathedral on this particular day thursday the 19th of november as we come to say our morning prayers there is a wonderful smell of the woods in autumn when you sit amongst the trees as they're losing their leaves and the leaves are covering the ground this morning here i've got hazel trees between you and me and an english robin has been singing in the trees and still is you'll probably hear him this is his territory when slashes and black birds stop singing for this part of the year it's the robins that take over and their great companions in the garden as are the wrens which are even smaller than the robbins but have a a shatteringly loud song for such a little bird well on this day bring your own concerns from across the world to our morning prayers and feel welcome we in england are still in lockdown and there is a sense of of wondering how to control this pandemic at present and so we're praying for all those who have to make very hard decisions at government level at this particular time when we come to say our prayers if we look back over the years this date november the 19th in history well we can say that in 1600 king charles the first was born he certainly wasn't born with the expectation of being king because he had an older brother who sadly died before james that the first of england died and so charles unexpectedly was put into the role of king he and queen henrietta maria were married uh here in a formal ceremony having had a separated ceremony before and when she came across charles came here with his court to meet her and later when charles ii came here you remember charles the first was the king who was executed and when charles ii came back to take the throne he first went to say prayers in canterbury having landed it over and spent the night here but gave prayers of thanksgiving for his father and his mother who was still very much alive at that time in 1620 the mayflower arrived at cape cod on this day with 87 pilgrim passengers it was quite a new beginning for them and in 1941 let's remember the fact that the australian warship hnas sydney was sunk by a an unexpected german raider in that part of the world uh disguised as a dutch merchantman and both ships in the battle think but hms sydney lost 645 the whole crew of the australian seamen so always as as always we've got aspects of war aspects of peace aspects of new beginnings and aspects of thankfulness this is world philosophy day and we've just recently been watching a program uh on television it's it's a a series called the good place and an american comedy series but uh in it there is a young philosopher called chidi who can't make up his mind whenever anyone asks him a question he said well plato would say this but aristotle would say this but kant would say this and so thinking of the myriad of philosophers throughout english history and the world's history and well it becomes an impossibility for people to make decisions and normally they focus on one or two names who are their heroes but let's think of all philosophers and thinkers at this particular time and lastly uh today in 1976 sebas spence died who was the architect of the new coventry cathedral we were thinking of how the old one was destroyed and the vision of reconciliation in the new one the cathedral church of st michael and the huge piece of sculpture outside shows sint michael defeating satan and that becomes very much part of our reflection today so let's begin our prayers oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall we proclaim your praise may christ the day star dawn in our hearts and triumph over the shades of night blessed are you creator of all to you be praise and glory forever as your dawn renews the face of the earth bringing light and life to all creation may we rejoice in this day you have made as we wake refreshed from the depths of sleep open our eyes to behold your presence and strengthen our hands to do your will that the world may rejoice and give you praise 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 does we rejoice in the gifts 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 so our son this morning on this 19th morning of the month is psalm 96 sing to the lord a new song sing to the lord all the earth sing to the lord and bless his name tell out his salvation from day to day declare his glory among the nations and his wonders among all peoples for great is the lord and greatly to be praised he is more to be feared than all gods for all the gods of the nations are but idols it is the lord who made the heavens honor and majesty are before him power and splendor are in his sanctuary ascribe to the lord you families of the peoples ascribe to the lord honor and strength ascribe to the lord the honor due to his name bring offerings and come into his courts worship the lord in the beauty of holiness let the whole earth tremble before him tell it out among the nations that the lord is king he has made the world so firm that it cannot be moved he will judge the peoples with equity let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad let the sea thunder and all that is in it let the fields be joyful and all that is in them and that all the trees of the wood shout for joy before the lord for he comes he comes to judge the earth with righteousness he will judge the world and the peoples with his truth well this morning we've reached the real heart of the revelation to john this book of visions and pictures and the struggle between the powers of good in the heavenly places and on earth and the power of evil in the heavenly places and on earth we are at revelation chapter 12 and we're going to read it all and a great sign appeared in heaven a woman closed with the sun with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of twelve stars was pregnant and was crying out in burst pains and the agony of giving birth and another sign appeared in heaven behold a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and on his head seven diadems his tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth and the dragons stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that when she bore her child he might devour it she gave birth to a male child one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron but her child was caught up to god and to his throne and the woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place prepared by god in which she is to be nourished for 1260 days now war arose in heaven michael and his angels fighting against the dragon and the dragon and his angels fought back but he was defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven and the great dragon was thrown down that ancient serpent who is called the devil and satan and the deceiver of the whole world he was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him and i heard a loud voice in heaven saying now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our god and the authority of his christ have come for the accuser of our brothers and sisters has been thrown down who accuses them day and night before our god and they have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony for they loved not their lives even unto death therefore rejoice o heavens and you who dwell in them but woe to you o earth and see for the devil has come down to you in great roth because he knows it is time in short and when the dragon saw that he had been thrown down to the earth he pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child but the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle so that she might fly from the serpent into the wilderness to the place where she is to be nourished for a time and times and half a time the serpent poured water like a river out of his mouth after the woman to sweep her away with a flood but the earth came to the help of the woman the earth opened its mouth and swallowed the river that the dragon had poured from his mouth and then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring on those who keep the commandments of god and hold to the testimony of jesus and the dragon stood on the sand of the sea an astonishing picture but when you remember what we were talking about yesterday with the cancelled conclusions as pharah called them of john's gospel the pauses that we keep getting and the returns to the worship of heaven and now here is god's answer this chapter might well be called the birth of the messiah the birth of the christ after so many servants have been slaughtered and slain god's answer is not to destroy not yet evil is still at work even in the heavenly places as we see but god's answer is the answer given by our lord himself in the parable of the tenants in the vineyard when fruitfulness is asked of them and the owner of the vineyard sent servant after servant after servant to seek for fruitfulness they beat one kill another and so on and so forth and the answer is not to destroy but to send his only son and the landowner says they will respect my son and instead of course you remember the tenants say this is the air let us kill him and all this will be ours we are in the realm of the way that evil can tempt and let's remember that saint paul himself again in the second letter to the corinthians which i keep returning to because it contains that vision of heaven which he had but which was too precious to him to try and put into words but in that he says satan can masquerade as an angel of light the methods of evil and temptation and we know this ourselves when again saint paul the good that we would we do not but the evil that we would not yet with that we do evil itself can masquerade as the best possible solution in these circumstances think by doing this you might well be doing great good the devil can masquerade as an angel of light but let's start with this birth of the christ for here is a woman with the sun and the moon and the stars all around her prepared to be the vessel of that birth now many have seen that simply as in an allegorical way the person of mary the mother of jesus others have seen it as the new eve or the heavenly jerusalem or the church itself allegories can be seen and received in so many different ways but let's be clear that here is the vessel whereby god's solution to evil in the heavens and on earth is attempting to be dealt with it's a gracious and merciful solution but it does give evil full rain still while this solution works itself out and at once the great serpent now that takes us straight back to the first few chapters of the ancient scriptures and all of the pictures of eden and its perfection and the serpent for the first time craftily making evil to sound like good and the woman and her husband giving way but what is interesting here is that when the dragon goes to make war on those who are the offspring of the messiah in the sense of and the one who bore the messiah those who become servants giving up their life for him it's not a a a human noun it's it's actually the word seed which is used the seed of the woman being the the offspring and i'm only saying that because that takes us back of course to that sentence in chapter three of genesis where uh the god says to um that the serpent in the garden of eden i will put enmity between you and the woman between your seed and her seed here is the original vessel of humanity it's by eve's child bearing that humanity goes forward in the ancient story way way back in the midst of time but that image then translates itself to the human line of the messiah the christ the birth of the christ in the middle of all this conflict and then beyond where when evil still works its purposes it's the seed of the woman that they are at enmity with evil everywhere and we get then that huge image it's the beginning of course of of the the epistle on michaelmas day war broke out in heaven and michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels this is a heavenly conflict which the archangel michael wins go to the book of daniel you will find so much of all that there but here and if you want to go to milton in paradise lost you can use those images as well because that huge allegory is a wonderful thing as well but here we have it and evil is thrown down onto the earth where the battle continues satan the dragon the false god crowned with diadems of his own making with all the horns and equipment of someone to be worshipped and yet masquerading as an angel of light but the very source of all evil you see how we could go on with all of this but there is one uh there's one image that i want to take from an anniversary before we stop and and i'm sure we shall reflect on much of this again as the revelation goes onwards and onwards towards the perfection of the holy city and the river of the water of life and the fruits of the tree of life today in 1850 alfred lord tennyson was made poet laureate he was parrot laureate for uh great britain and ireland from 1850 until 1892 42 years of the reign of queen victoria so he had taken over from william wordsworth those who followed him in 1892 weren't quite such poets as those two but uh in fact tennyson became almost an image of of the victorian age and his poetry we could quote realms of it this morning but there's only one bit that i want to quote it's a longish bit but i think it helps us this morning it's a piece from mort dasa not his long poems about because he was absolutely fixed on the arthurian legends and the knights of the round table and the round table and representing the wholeness of the world but then falling to corruption um but this is more data where sir bellavia has brought the mortally wounded asa to the side of the lake and arthur orders him before he dies to throw in an excalibur the sword so bedover goes and thinks well this is a waste and hides the sword and comes back and arthur says have you done it and sebedevier says yes and arthur says tell me what you saw and he said i saw the lake shimmering and rippling as it received the sword and arthur says you haven't done it go back and that happens again in exactly the same way and the third time bedovia does it and you remember how the arm of with white samite grasps the sword and turns it three times in the air and takes it into the waters of the lake and then bedovia goes back and arthur is ready then himself to set out on those waters as his life ebbs and here's the tennyson bit and slowly answered arthur from the barge [Music] the old order changeth yielding placed anew and god fulfills himself in many ways lest one good custom should corrupt the world comfort thyself what comfort is in me i have lived my life and that which i have done may god within himself make pure but thou if thou should never see my face again pray for my soul more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of wherefore let thy voice rise like a fountain for me night and day for what are men better than sheep or goats that nourish a blind life within a brain if knowing god they lift not hands of prayer both for themselves and those who call them friend so the whole round earth is every way bound by gold chains about the feet of god but now farewell i am going a long way with these i see us if indeed i go for all my mind is clouded with a doubt to the island valley of avilion where falls not hail or rain or any snow nor ever wind blows loudly but it lies deep meadowed happy fair with orchard lawns and bowery hollows crowned with summer sea where i will heal me of my grievous wound one sees how powerful the rhymes of tennyson became to the vision of people in that 19th century spell as he was poet laureate let's say our prayers on this morning as we've been advised to do by tennyson to pray for each other and create those gold chains around the feet of god today we're praying in the anglican communion for the diocese of sambalpur in north india and pineal dip the bishop there and his people the diocese of dunkwa on offin in west africa and edmund amowa the bishop there and his people and the diocese of durgapur also in north india and samir isaac kimler the bishop there and his people pray for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover for tim bishop at lambeth and today for the parish of sin faith maidstone with ringleston hall and the parish priest there arthur houston and all his people so let's say our prayers and as we do so we pray for leaders for discernment and the welfare of all their people we remember the gift of god through his christ given through the human vessel of his mother mary we remember also that the power of imperial rome which was tempted always to assume godlike proportions was the target of all john's revelation and that target is represented by the officer of rome pontius pilate say that when we say our apostles creed those two human figures mary born of the virgin mary suffered under pontius pilate represent god's plan which is not only of nativity but the arms of the cross and the wounded christ giving his life and also the imperial power and the temptation to masquerade as an angel of light of roman emperors at that time and so many powers since and before is represented by the one figure pontius pilot and we say those two names daily representing the struggle that john is talking about here's the collect for this time heavenly father whose blessed son was revealed to destroy the works of the devil and to make us the children of god and heirs of eternal life grant that we having this hope may purify ourselves even as he is pure that when he shall appear in power and great glory we may be made like him in his eternal and glorious kingdom where he is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever are men so we say each in our own language 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 as the robin sings here on the hazel tree in the silence we make our own prayers [Music] the peace of god which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of god and of his son jesus christ our lord 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 [Music]