good morning and welcome to canterbury cathedral to the dinery garden here on sunday the 16th of january as we come to say our morning prayers welcome wherever you are in the world and please bring your own concerns and intentions we've come out into a very different atmosphere this morning in the garden and we've come to a very special spot there's no frost this morning the air is quite balmy and the sky is blue with a just a shred of cloud but we're looking at the beautiful flowers of a cherry a winter flowering cherry an autumn alice and uh it's been flowering for some little time now it's coming to the end of its flowering season but the white petals look like snowflakes almost as they fall onto the ground and it's a cheerful sight with the cathedral tower behind it because this is the day when in our epiphany readings we come to the third of the signs coming of the magi and then last week the baptism of jesus and today the wedding at cana in galilee nothing better for wedding than cherry blossom and although this little tree doesn't have the opulence of its brother and sister next door which are massive and when they come to their flowering town time which is generally late april early may they put blossoms everywhere and carpets of petals this one is modest but it's very welcome on a winter morning and this is just the sense of a sign of spring with our friend the robin singing at the same time so be welcome and let's just think of one or two areas of the the world and let's think specifically this morning of course of the pacific rim nations and particularly the island of tonga following the uh great eruption of the volcano hungatanga hunga hapai and that enormous explosion which was heard so many hundreds and even more than that miles away because that has caused devastation but it's an unknown devastation at the moment from the tsunamis in tonga because it's hard to get accurate information because communication lines seem to have broken through all of this but the uh new zealand and australia have ships and aeroplanes waiting to fly when they can but the ash cloud is so great and the capital of tonga nuku alofa we're told is is covered in ash from this which is still falling so the great problem is fresh drinking water because the ash is poisoning all the water so we want that help to get there as soon as possible and it certainly will but we think also of the islands around but and the the waves of this have even washed as far as the californian coast and into japan and all those other areas around the pacific showing what a cataclysmic explosion this eruption of the mountain has been and we still have to assess the effect on human life and certainly our homes especially in tonga so our hearts and minds go there we've had some good news from a good friend in the united states and i'm talking about michael curt because he and his wife sarah have had a baby boy henry and they've sent us some pictures michael is the associate director of christ church christian 100 wilmington delaware and we are thrilled that michael and sarah have their firstborn son henry and i think if you look at the picture you'll see that cosy the burmese mountain dog who's very much part of the family is just as thrilled but very much wants to be part of the scene so congratulations to them it's a day of celebration for marriage in our reading the marriage at cana of galilee it's a day of celebration for new birth but it's a dared celebration for beginnings like the flowering that is going on around me and some of these flowers are so tiny but they are a prelude to spring there are tiny violets flowering at my feature and all these flowers like the yellow aconites at other places in the garden are beginning to show that a new beginning is unwrapping itself in creation around us in this part of the world you will be in so many different seasons at the moment so let me just think of our own season and share it with you let's begin our prayers then on this day oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your light springs up for the nation for the righteous and all the peoples have seen your glory blessed are you sovereign god our light and our salvation to you be glory and praise forever you gave your christ as a light to the nations and through the anointing of the spirit you established us as a royal priesthood as you call us into your marvelous light may our lives bear witness to your truth and our lips never cease to proclaim your 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 as we rejoice in the gift of this new day so may the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever amen our son this morning on this 16th morning of the month is psalm 81 [Music] sing merrily to god our strengths shout for joy to the god of jacob take up the song and sound the timbrel the tuneful liar with the harp blow the trumpet at the new moon as at the full moon upon our solemn feast day for this is a statute for israel a law of the god of jacob the charge he laid on the people of joseph when they came out of the land of egypt i heard a voice i did not know that said i ease their shoulder from the burden their hands were set free from bearing the load you called upon me in trouble and i delivered you i answered you from the secret place of thunder and proved you at the waters of meribah here o my people and i will admonish you o israel if you would but listen to me there shall be no strange god among you you shall not worship a foreign god i am the lord your god who brought you up from the land of egypt open your mouth wide and i shall fill it but my people would not hear my voice and israel would not obey me so i sent them away in the stubbornness of their hearts and let them walk after their own counsels oh that my people would listen to me that israel would walk in my ways then i should soon put down their enemies and turn my hand against their adversaries those who hate the lord will be humbled before him and their punishment would last forever but israel would i feed with the finest wheat and with honey from the rock would i satisfy them so we to turn to our our wedding story and uh we've had behind me there or we have behind me there the two white chairs under a canopy so often in ceremonies of a wedding in various faiths and in communions of the christian church a canopy is placed over a ceremonial canopy placed over bride and groom as they make their vows as a sign of protection not only the hand of god but the canopy held by four friends and uh those two chairs uh in an arbor that at different times of year is covered in roses but this morning show the special vows to be made by bride and groom this morning in cana of galilee as we read our lesson and the celebrations which follow so let's read our lesson is from john's gospel and it's the second chapter beginning at the first verse [Applause] on the third day there was a wedding at cana in galilee and the mother of jesus was there jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples when the wine ran out the mother of jesus said to him they have no wine and jesus said to her woman what does this have to do with me my hour has not yet come but his mother said to the servants do whatever he tells you now there were six stone water jars there for the jewish rites of purification each holding 20 or 30 gallons jesus said to the servants fill the jars with water and they filled them up to the brim and he said to them now draw some out and take it to the steward of the feast so they took it and when the steward of the feast tasted the water now become wine and did not know where it came from though the servants who had drawn the water knew the steward of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him everyone serves the good wine first and when people have drunk freely then the poor wine but you have kept the good wine until now this the first of his signs jesus did at cana in galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him it's a happy and lovely story about a very human celebration in rural galilee in the village of cana some of you like me would have been there and the sense of companionship between jesus and those with whom he has grown up for it's not too far from nazareth and his mother is there probably knowing most of the people there and the disciples too who were local galileans but they've come as companions of jesus and they are sitting not in pride of place but quietly as wedding guests having taken their place in all humility and we come to the first sentence on the third day there was a wedding in cana of galilee well at the beginning of st john's gospel time and signs become intensely important and you will notice in chapter one of st john that there is a sequence of days it says the next day the day after this is all around the time when we're looking at the ministry of john the baptist and the officers from judea are investigating it and questioning john and john giving answers about not being the christ and not being the prophet but talking about after him coming one who is greater than he we've been through all of that last week with the baptism of jesus of course but now then this chapter begins on the third day now the amount of ink that has been spilt on that little phrase in terms of sequence uh is just uh completely uh uncountable because how does it work they were down in judea and beyond jerusalem at the places where which is described by john were where they were baptizing or john was baptizing john the baptist and now they are right up beyond nazareth in galilee how does that work the third day and people have had all kinds of of theories and reasons and and theological symbolism and everything else and to me the most convincing reason was given to me by john 80 robinson the great new testament scholar who actually was born here in the house that cannon emma is now living in and he in in older age went out when he was writing his book the priority of john to just be there and be a pilgrim there and it happened that they were having a conversation with his group we're having a conversation with one of the locals and the man was talking about a wedding and it was a tuesday morning and the man said well of course we we have a custom of having weddings on tuesdays here because in the book of genesis when they came to the third day it's the only day where the account says god saw that it was good and he's twice every other day gets it once but tuesday gets it twice now we in our country and in different languages have names for the days of the week monday coming from moon day sunday coming from sunday tuesday wednesday thursday friday from north and northern gods and and sata saturday from the planet saturn all those all those names we know all that but in greek and in hebrew they simply counted through the first day of the week the second day of the week the third day and john robinson said this is simply a name for the day because it was the one where people love to get married because god saw and said that it was good twice but the inference is taking us back also to the very beginning of the book of genesis and in that account of course the whole thing becomes the first day the second day i think leo's got the spring about him this morning the first day the second day the third day and you get that in haydn's creation the great oratorio when praise is given by the angels of god and the glories of the first day the second day the third day well here's the third day and they're gathered for a wedding at cana of galilee in the most local of circumstances the sort of wedding that you or i might attend of friends and uh the people there tend to know each other and probably have known each other and are telling stories to each other about how they were when they were younger and teasing the bridegroom and and also making the bride uh smile by the things they're saying about the beautiful way she's looking on that day and how handsome the bridegroom looks all those things that we do at weddings and the wine runs out and it's at this point that now john not only never names himself in the gospel but never names the mother of jesus he simply calls her the mother of jesus and he has told us that the mother of jesus was there and she was the most important guest in a way jesus mother she comes first after we're told that there was a wedding and then jesus and his disciples but not in any public position yet and the mother of jesus notices now we know from the sense of luke giving us mary keeping things and treasuring them in her heart we know of her intuition in family and community life and we know that she herself would notice when the atmosphere suddenly became tense and maybe people began to whisper to one another the wines run out and there's nothing more to keep the celebration going and mary in her intuition now thinks wider and knows her son to the depths of her being and simply says to him the wine has run out they have no wine and jesus in an in an ordinary way it's a factual way uh says uh well that what has that to do with me and mary knows exactly what it has to do with him but he has said my hour has not yet come now when jesus's hour comes right at the end of the gospel we're actually talking about the physical giving of his humanity on the cross and the shedding of his blood by then the hour has come for the son of man to be glorified and i when i am lifted up will draw all nations all peoples to myself but for the moment he's actually talking about public activity and recognition of his ministry is not the time and mary clearly believes that it is and also that her little prompt though he says nothing more will cause him through compassion to give celebration to an occasion where the cup has run dry and she says to the servants and let me say have i said so many times in the greek in sin john's gospel those servants are called deacons the acanoy and that too has a great significance of service and ministry especially i believe for the disciples she says to the servants to the deacons do whatever he tells you words from the mother of jesus ringing down to us to be heeded day by day do whatever he tells you and jesus says fill the the empty jars huge jars for rights of purification of the old covenant with pure water and then after that he says now draw salmon take it to the steward of the feast and they draw some and the steward of the feast tasting it pronounces it to be the best and most mature wine that he's tasted you have kept the good wine till now all these sentences capable of a million interpretations this first sign of the redeemer to use that word that we were using in the story of ruth as he comes to his own community and then you get that again almost cryptic uh statement the steward of the feast didn't know where the wine had come from but the deacons knew the diaconoy and by jesus are sitting maybe six of his disciples i think it's as a foolish thing to try and equate signs absolutely with things but you can imagine the group of simon and andrew and james and john and philip and nathaniel all of whom are buying six who will later learn first of all what it is not to understand but to know where this power is coming from in their ministry and they get it wrong so much when they're with jesus and yet these disciples will first become if you like to achinoy with the fragments that jesus gives them but their broken fragments and then beyond when they themselves have failed him failed to understand and had their courage fail as well at the appointed hour later on the lakeside when commissions are given at the end of this gospel they themselves are set to offer their own human lives their own blood in this ministry all of that is there and the stewards ordinary joke with the bridegroom saying most people show off the best wine they have first and then leave the really really um poor wine until people's taste has been dulled and their judgment dulled by drinking the best wine to capacity but you've done it the other way round you have left the best wine till now and there's another sentence this book of signs saint john's gospel is very much uh at play here with this beautiful story of cana in galilee remember going to cana in 1995 and sort of thinking of standing there in that real place well the sense of something new uh and the best wine kept till now is very much an epiphany sign and the ministry of jesus will gradually like the gift of the new day be unwrapped as john's gospel proceeds but for this morning we have this lovely capsule if you like of a of a picture of a wedding a local one with much joy and ordinary communications around and at the same time something of immense significance being unfolded by the prompting of the mother of jesus to her son whom she knows is now ready to begin a human ministry well now on this day and uh it uh has many memories for for me on this day in 1836 january the 16th 1836 the composer leo de libe was born and i said that in 1995 i was at cane of galilee earlier in the year around candle mass and i've described this incident to you i'd gone into the madeleine and seen that the crib there which which was made by the students of the university nearby in the shape of an of an oasis where the child was the well in the middle of the oasis and mary uh thoughtfully looking at him sitting a little way he's covered in a sheepskin which the shepherds have brought and all of them are uncovered so that the shepherds are sitting without coverings on their head and they're very young but they're they've taken a a seat away and one is playing a pipe and one is holding a rather gangling black lamb but the magi are there with a palm tree showing this is an oasis and the the well with the child in its place and the phrase of the psalm with you is the well of life and the magi in total humility and joseph standing absolutely erect looking quite young and again with his head uncovered and the donkey the ox is on one side uh snuffling around and looking to be eating things on the ground but on the other side the the donkey was pushing in to joseph in a sort of affectionate way as as as not only horses but the cats do sometimes they push into you and joseph has his hand there in a gesture of affection and pushing back which the animals like but at the same time his eye is in a protective way on mary and on the child now i remember all of that and went off then because the folk i was with had gone back to england i had one more night there and i bought a ticket just by chance at the opera comic to an opera that i'd never seen and didn't know anything about it at that time and it was called lakme and i found myself watching on that night de leib's opera lack me and it was the first time i was completely entranced by the opera and this is an opera that's not been performed at covent garden since 1910 and hasn't been performed in the met uh metropolitan opera house in in in new york since 1947 but there is a song in it that all of you will know it's called the flower duet between lakme and her maid and as they sing that lovely duet uh it's something that's caught our imagination and british airways used it as their advertisement for themselves for for ages it's a song you'll know straight away you all know that and it was the first time i heard it and it was done with a a lovely sort of balloon on the of the opera is set in the middle of the 19th century in india and uh lakme and her maid play with a with a balloon as it's done and there's a a playful quality about that duet i didn't know at the time but i was watching natalie desai who who since then has become a world-class opera singer i was watching her sing lack me and enjoying the beautiful music that dele was creating for this opera so little performed uh and natalie to say we've we've seen particularly in uh the field regimen the donati singing juan diego de flores uh and together there and uh there she's hugely amusing but in this she was very very elegant as lakme and under those who young had the voice to sing it all of these things i'm mentioning because so many things happen by chance and it was the first time that i really uh realized how important delibe was in the development of music in the 19th century and particularly this of course was an opera a full opera being produced and the the love affair that develops between the young british officer gerald and uh and the the uh the um princess uh lakme is is extraordinary but it's a 19th century thing and there's a sort of picnics of the of the people on the stage and there are also scenes in temple than the rest but uh as we we look at de leave he's best known of course for bringing the full orchestra into ballet adolf adam had had started that that move but then de libe in capelia and sylvia followed that up in a very big way so i want on this day which is uh the date of his birth in 1836 to remember him he only lived to be 54 uh and and his his uh operas were his ballet was produced capella was produced in paris in 1870 interrupted by the franco-prussian war and the the siege of paris and then the awful uh atrocities and and terrible violence of the commune period where paris uh the hotel de ville was burned down and the tweelers were burned down all of those things and in the middle of that copelia was interrupted and then later taken up again one forgets that these things go on despite conflicts and wars and human life is a mixture right across the world at any time of of fear and hope and danger and and relaxed happiness and joy and sadness and birth and death and marriage and and birth as we've remembered today all those things but deliver captures in capelia the joy of a rural community and there's nothing like the the established joy of his message as the villagers dance or there is in it also the walls of the hours and the hours represent the times of day which we were thinking about the concept of time in st john's gospel so his sylvia ballet produced in 1876 and lakme in 1883 well before tchaikovsky's ballets and they catch ideas from one another but he brought the great 19th century orchestral sound into the ballet and has made it a very different exercise since and i give thanks for having actually on that night quite by chance caught that historic performance of lakme with natalie say singing there in paris so let's uh think of all that creative loveliness as we think of the garden with a much much wider capacity for creative loveliness as the little flowers like the violets and the aconites and the the uh lovely cherry blossom blossom ouch and we've got creative loveliness sitting behind me with leo who has been faithful mostly this morning but his eyes are always watching for what's going on in the garden particularly for his his particular enemy who teases him the robbing but he's high up and singing in the tree at the moment okay let's say our prayers on this sunday morning the second sunday after the epiphany and in the anglican communion on this day we are praying for the church of england and so we pray for justin our archbishop as primate of all england today and as we pray for all the parishes of the southern province and the northern province and we pray too for the ministry of the archbishop of york in the whole church of england and taking its place as a part of the worldwide anglican communion of which this cathedral is the mother church the diocese is giving us what we call a listening and discerning day for meditating on the themes of the day and we'll continue with the recover deanery parishes as we go through this next week so what we also want to pray for bishop rose of dover and bishop emma at lambeth and you will want to pray for various people of your own communities so let's pray the prayer for this day the second sunday of the epiphany almighty god in christ you make all things new transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace and in the renewal of our lives make known your heavenly glory through jesus christ our lord amen so let's say together each in our own language and in our own way 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 so i wanted to say that uh i was moved by um in galilee and and the the the lovely story to to to write a hymn for two friends when they were married uh barnaby and susan and that hymn which was sung as the last hymn in the epiphany carol service last week love spoke the word and by that word pure water turned to wine and in in that um him uh i tried to encapsulate my own thinking about the uh what was happening with that what i call the first redemptive sign which the word made flesh actually affected at the wedding in cana of galilee and it's set to the tune of ko fen [Music] so yes [Music] foreign [Music] foreign foreign [Music] we've spoken about what the third day means to us the minute we hear that expression and said about the the days of creation right at the beginning of genesis as a beginning perhaps uh recently we've been singing that the 12 days of christmas so once again the third day of christmas is is a verse of that song the third day begins the wedding at cana of galilee the beginning of jesus's ordinary earthly ministry what we haven't mentioned is that that ministry will go through the offering of life when the hour for him to be lifted up comes and then beyond to the third day which for us of course and in the uh the creed this comes very strongly is the day of resurrection the day of beginnings of a new covenant and of new life so those words become very significant and signs always have huge meaning in a multitude of different directions christ the son of god in you the image of his glory and gladden your hearts with the good news of his kingdom 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 perhaps i should have said that barnaby the bridegroom for whom with susan the hymn was written and sung barnaby was one of our choristers and now he's a famous composer in his own right and susan uh was in charge of the the fashions and dresses for downton abbey so at the wedding reception afterwards we remember meeting people that we thought we knew and we didn't actually we just knew them as the cast of downton abbey meeting them there and had to do a double take but what i was going to say was that barnaby asked to have sung by the choir morton lorison's lovely handsome omanian mysterium which talks of the the creatures being there silently at the crib as the first witnesses and the beauty of it really overcame him so that when i uh had them kneeling at the altar and this was sung and i turned round to give them the blessing his face was holding on to susan's hands and streaming with tears so that was the bridegroom on that day and they were tears of great joy as we well know so we give thanks for all of that and that there's so many different feelings of celebration at a human wedding and the sort of divine quality of it [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Laughter] [Music] it [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] [Applause] [Music] me [Music] oh [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Applause] 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