good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of sunday the 2nd of january we've come out into the garden and into the propagating greenhouse which is also the tiger house and we're guests of tiger here this morning who is the most patient cat in the world except when it comes to food as you'll see in a bit but uh in his patience he is here enjoying these bales of straw which we've moved in out of the rain and they've become great grandstands for tiger and we enjoy being in here with him as he enjoys being in here with us you'll remember perhaps from last year that this greenhouse was full of little plants growing they've all been moved into the other greenhouse next door and this greenhouse has been cleared so that when we finished all our christmas broadcasting and fletcher has a bit more time during the day then uh he will be out here planting the new seedlings for next year and they will go into this greenhouse so this is a day which is full of complete silence and uh let me go up and join him here now it's full of silence outside because we are now going to enjoy two bank holidays because uh this is the day after new year's day which generally would have been a a bank holiday new year's day itself but we couldn't have it because it was saturday and then sunday and so the bank holiday will come tomorrow and in a public holiday there is a sense after christmas of waiting patiently and work begins on tuesday very quiet days here in england so join us in our prayers as we begin them this 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 does 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 so we come to say our sun together and we remember that this is a time of waiting and patience there are there are some more creatures in here waiting and being patient for warmer weather because of course we've got the hedgehogs and the two tortoises in here in hibernation but this is very warm today it's the warmest new year we've had on record and so the heat has turned off here in the greenhouse at the moment and it may be that later on in the day the tortoises and the hedgehogs will trundle around a little bit before going back to continue their winter nap psalm 10 this morning why stand so far off o lord why hide yourself in time of trouble the wicked in their pride persecute the poor let them be caught in the schemes they have devised the wicked boast of their hearts desire the covetous curse and revile the lord the wicked in their arrogance say god will not avenge it in all their scheming god counts for nothing they are stubborn in all their ways for your judgments are far above out of their sight they scoff at all their adversaries they say in their heart i shall not be shaken no harm shall ever happen to me their mouth is full of cursing deceit and fraud under their tongue lie mischief and wrong they lurk in the outskirts and in dark alleys they murder the innocent their eyes are ever watching for the helpless they lie in wait like a lion in his den they lie in weight to seize the poor they seize the poor when they get them into their net the innocent are broken and humbled before them the helpless fall before their power they say in their heart god has forgotten he hides his face away he will never see it arise o lord god and lift up your hand forget not the poor why should the wicked be scornful of god why should they say in their hearts you will not avenge it surely you behold trouble and misery you see it and take it into your own hand the helpless commit themselves to you for you are the helper of the orphan break the power of the wicked and militias search out their wickedness until you find none the lord shall reign for ever and ever the nation shall perish from his land lord you will hear the desire of the poor you will incline your ear to the fullness of their heart to give justice to the orphaned and oppressed so that people are no longer driven in terror from the land now tiger's been having his breakfast but just as we had with the turkeys they frightened him away now with the uh with what i was about to do so i may wait for him to come back but we have a christmas present here for him and uh i'll put this down on the floor so i can get easily to it when he returns he's very patient but he's also very shy so any quick movement is something that actually makes him a little bit scared i'm sure he'll return to us and we've got here a nice present for him so we've come to a special lesson for today uh this is a day when it's a day of christmas it's the ninth day of christmas and will be followed tomorrow by the tenth day of christmas and there are really days of patient waiting for the feast of the epiphany and here we are going back now to the christmas lessons and this is an old testament prophecy this morning from the 11th chapter of the prophet isaiah there shall come forth a shoot from the stamp of jesse and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit and the spirit of the lord shall rest upon him the spirit of wisdom and understanding the spirit of counsel and might the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the lord and his delight shall be in the fear of the lord he shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide disputes by what his ears hear but with righteousness he shall judge the poor and decide with equity for the meek of the earth and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked righteousness shall be the belt of his waist and faithfulness the belt of his loins then the wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together and a little child shall lead them the cow and the bear shall graze their young shall lie down together and the lion shall eat straw like the ox the nursing child shall play over the whole of the asp and the ween child shall put his hand on the adder's den they shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the lord as the waters cover the sea it's the most beautiful prophecy and it's a prophecy that we're used to peering red in carol services it's from the prophet isaiah the prophet that our lord loved to quote himself and we hear of him and see him reading the scroll of that prophet in nazareth in galilee look tiger you've been sent a christmas present from someone and they're full of lovely dreamies and in the end when christmas is over here we are look this is very beautiful not sure tiger knows about dreamers quite so much as our other cats do you want to come up on here look yes he does treats like this can't go on very long it's the same for us mince pies and chocolate soon now have to stop but these are the days of christmas so let's allow him to have a nice time here um and there's a nice pack of these but they will be rationed very very severely through the year they're not terribly good for you but they are full of lovely things in terms of your enjoyment so to go back to isaiah i was moved one year to about two years ago really three years ago to write the prophecy of isaiah in carol form and i brought my own notebook out and here it is it's been sung and to a tune again a tune composed for it which i wrote out but today i'm just going to read it as a poem and the rhythms will help us to remember it so a shoot shall spring up out of jesse and a branch shall grow out of its stem and the peoples of earth shall know peace from this birth for a little child shall lead them and the spirit of god shall be on him and no one shall hurt or destroy and the creatures of earth shall be glad for his birth for a little child shall lead them the calf shall lie down with the lion and the leopard lie down with the lamb and the lion himself shall eat straw like the ox and the little child shall feed them and wisdom shall be with the lion and counsel will be with the lamb and knowledge be there with the cow and the bear and a little child shall lead them then justice shall come from the mountain and healing and joy from the trees and mercy that saves from the wind and the waves and the little child shall lead them and the sun will bring life from the cornfield and love from the fruit of the vine and all warfare will cease in a kingdom of peace where a little child shall lead them i wrote it so that that line which is a line which our lord expresses in the way in which he places a little child in front of his disciples in answer to the question who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven and now here we see him in these 12 days of christmas as a little child in the manger at bethlehem and i think tigers discovered exactly christmas treats here we are there's a boy that i think must be an end for now i want to get up that's right and that image of the little child and the peaceful kingdom is one which is a preface to our christmas lessons and i just want to go back to the chapter in luke that we were reading yesterday when we were thinking of the naming of jesus and the eight days to his fulfillment of the law as he was circumcised in his own culture and in obedience to the law and we read when the shepherds had gone away mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart it's the most lovely sentence and it comes again at the end of chapter two after the finding in the temple treasuring things in her heart and pondering them waiting patiently sometimes that's really necessary in our spiritual lives or in our human lives for nothing can be hurried the shoot will spring out of jesse well one knows the absolute waste of time in thinking i can make this grow faster and faster for any plant takes its time and to be healthy and strong knows when to grow but also at this winter time many plants need the time for sleeping yesterday we were out in the orchard and around us were many plants which had simply gone right back into their roots and just waiting for the time to grow when the warmth of spring comes again but the necessary waiting the necessary rest time and for the blessed virgin mary that's not only during these years of infancy but remember that the hidden time for jesus and sin luke gives us the exact time in his gospel the 30 years until he comes to announce his human ministry the waiting time and there must have been a certain amount of impatience in the virgin mary at the end because uh when at the wedding in canaan of galilee she reaches to him and says they have no wine and he says my hour has not yet come yet at the same time here at the manger in these days we're given the hint that her heart was treasuring every experience and pondering it not with her mind but with her heart pondered them in her heart it's the most lovely sentence we have a kneeler in the uh where people kneel to say their prayers near an icon of the foot washing in the cathedral and on it one of the community from downside when it was created father michael carved a sentence which simply says wait for the lord so when pilgrims light their candles first on as they kneel on that kneeling desk written beautifully carved into the beautiful woods on the left hand side is the capital greek letter alpha on the right hand side the capital greek letter omega the beginning and the end but in the middle just those words wait for the lord and waiting is often the hardest thing of all for any of us to do i wanted to mention today a carol and it is a lovely carol it's a carol written by a man called william chatterton dix and i wrote it down so i get his words absolutely right because they've been altered and uh jumbled around for various reasons uh editors of him books are always trying to change the theology of writers of hymns and i know that only too well and it causes me irritation when i see a beautiful piece of poetry messed up in a particular way because it fits in better with the theology of what's going on and not with what the writer wrote but william chatterton dix was born in bristol city i know very well it was only about eight or nine miles from home when i was growing up and his father there was a local surgeon john dicks his name dix and he was also the writer of books and he he'd written a biography of the famous young poet thomas chatterton the 18th century poet who had died in bristol in in very young years and because of that when his own son was born he named him not just william dicks but william chatterton dix a memory of the biography he had written but william chatterton dix became the manager of an insurance company not in bristol but right up in glasgow and at the age of 29 he was suddenly stricken with what was thought to be a fatal illness and he spent months in bed he entered into a severe depression because of these months of waiting in sickness of weakness and then something wonderful occurred he began in his mind to write beautiful poems which became hymns we know many of them we shall sing one at epiphany as with gladness men of old did the guiding star behold we sing one often at communion alleluia sing to jesus he's the scepter he's the throne his the triumph alone and um as we come to harvey's time one of his greatest hymns to me to thee o lord our hearts we raise with hymns of adoration to thee bring sacrifice of praise with shouts of exaltation and the last verse giving that beautiful image of heaven oh blessed is that land of god where saints abide forever where golden fields spread far and broad where flows the crystal river well there's a christmas song which he wrote which is very beautiful and it is full of the kind of questions that mary was asking pondering in her heart with the child that was there before her in the manger and in chattan dixie's him lying on her lap that him which i'll read in a moment was set by john steiner the musician in writing his um or gathering together rather christmas carols new and old which was published in 1871 chattanooga and dicks had written it in 1865 and it was set to the tune green sleeves a very ancient english tune from the 16th century i shall read it but earlier uh fletcher discovered on the internet uh the carol being sung by the canterbury choir in 1952 i think and uh so you will hear that as well in an old recording but we believe it's it's not the canterbury cathedral choir it's a a can to require uh but we and and we think it's probably the one in the united states though uh it's it's hard to tell because there's nothing saying that but you'll hear the song and you'll hear it to the right words as well and here are the right words what child is this who laid to rest on mary's lap is sleeping whom angels greet with anthem's sweet while shepherd's watch are keeping this this is christ the king whom shepherds guard and angels sing haste haste to bring him lord the babe the son of mary why lies he in such mean estate where ox and ass are feeding good christian fear for sinners here the silent word is pleading nails spear shall pierce him through the cross be born for me for you hail hail the word made flesh the babe the son of mary so bring him incense gold and myrrh come peasant king to own him the king of kings salvation brings let loving hearts enthrone him raise raise the song on high the virgin sings her lullaby joy joy for christ is born the babe the son of mary and once again there is in the carol as we've seen in so many of the carols a deep theology and chatterton dix has given it to us absolutely straightforwardly he asks the question which the virgin is pondering what child is this lying here asleep what child is this who laid to rest on mary's lap is sleeping and then the answer the first one this this is christ the king whom shepherds guard and angels sing and notice each verse ends with the babe the son of mary anchoring us in the same questions being pondered in the virgin's heart but at the same time giving the answers which are too almost too large for us to realize as we've seen with so many of these hymns and that appears in both verse 2 and verse 3 why lies he in such mean a stage and the answer given is for sinners here the silent word is pleading and the word has a capital w once again as in in the beginning was the word the eternal word made flesh the humanity of jesus but in that humanity even in the silence of his new the word is pleading for sinners and we note also good christian fear and take that psalmist sentence fear the fear of god is the beginning of wisdom here is the beginning the alpha of the word made flesh pleading for sinners which will be affected in nails and spear and the cross born for me and for you and then with the great uh reference to the epiphany incense gold and myrrh we have the words the word made flesh hail hail the word made flesh the babe the son of mary all those things we give thanks for and remember that they were the fruit of months and months of sickness and total lack of energy and then intense depression and suddenly at the end of that waiting a new kind of gift flowered in chatterton dixie's ability to write beautiful hymns which then entered into the carol books and we know his hymns very well indeed but it teaches us deep theology as so many of the carols do as we remember the virgin mother on this day of waiting and patience with the child on her lap only a few days old so let's say our prayers on this second sunday of christmas and we bring our own intentions from across the world and today in the anglican communion we are praying for the church in the congo the episcopal anglican church in the congo and we are praying also for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover for emma bishop at lambeth and continuing to pray for the villages of the east bridge deanery not too far from here which we will pray for day by day in in their particular with their particular names as this week goes on but today we're giving thanks for all clergy with permission to officiate many of them retired or living there continuing to church serve the church in those uh often little parishes and uh celebrate the communion and and give the services to the the people there and pastoral care so we say the collect for this second sunday after christmas almighty god in the birth of your son you have poured on us the new light of your incarnate word and shown us the fullness of your love help us to walk in his light and dwell in his love that we may know the fullness of his joy who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever 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 amen moment of reflection now on this day of waiting and of patience worshiping the word made flesh so [Music] is [Music] this is is [Music] trees [Music] is [Music] [Music] salvation [Music] is [Music] is [Music] a christ who by his coming at christmas time gathered into one the things of earth and the things of heaven fill you with the spirit of inward 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 at this christmas time and always amen so we wish you a happy continuation of christmas [Music] [Music] the lights are turned way [Music] but [Music] [Music] goodbye but as long as you love me so let us know let us know let us know let us know let us know let us know [Music] [Music] all the way home [Music] let us know let us know let us know do so [Music] do [Music] do [Music] so [Music] you