good morning and welcome on this third day of April 3 days now after Easter day and on Monday the 1st of April we were sitting outside for evening prayer now this morning the weather is quite quite different you're looking in the same direction and there is a very forceful storm going on here and across this part of the United States it's swept across the Hudson Valley and has hit the house this is the shelter side of the house can you believe it but the trees which are leafless are still rocking with the wind and it's destined to go on for a few hours yet we are without electricity but the light is good and growing so we will begin our morning prayers together and continue to give thanks for this season of Resurrection this Conservatory that we're sitting in protects us and gives light but also it's a place where our friend Peter who is a keen Gardener uh plants up his pots and at the same time places his seedlings in their propagators so that they're sheltered but have ample light and it's a a good place to come when one is thinking of growing things in springtime so let us begin our our morning prayer for the Easter season we're on page 263 if you are in daily prayer oh Lord open our lips and our mouths shall Proclaim your praise in your Resurrection o Christ let Heaven and Earth Rejoice Allelujah blessed are you Lord God of our Salvation to you be praise and glory forever as once you ransomed your people from Egypt and LED them to freedom in the promised land so now you have delivered us from the Dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of your risen son may we the first fruits of your new creation rejoice in this new day you have made and praise you for your Mighty acts Blessed Be god father Son and Holy Spirit blessed be God forever we the Easter anthems sentences from the New Testament Christ Our Passover has been sacrificed for us so let us celebrate the Feast not with the old leevan of corruption and wickedness but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and Truth Christ once raised from the dead dies No More Death has no more dominion over him in dying he died to sin once for all in living He Lives to God see yourselves therefore as dead to sin and alive to God in Jesus Christ Our Lord Christ has been raised from the dead the first fruits of those who sleep for Since By Man Came Death by man has come also the resurrection of the Dead for as in Adam all die even so in Christ shall all be made alive glory to the father and to the son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and shall be forever amen 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 our Psalm this morning is Psalm 84 how lovely is your dwelling place oh lord of hosts my soul has a desire and long in to enter the courts of the Lord my heart and my flesh rejoice in the Living God the sparrow has found her a house and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young at your altars oh lord of hosts my king and my God blessed are they who dwell in your house they will always be praising you blessed are those whose strength is in you in whose heart are the highways to Zion who going through the Barron Valley find there a spring and the early rains will clothe it with blessing they will go from strength to strength and appear before God in Zion Oh Lord God of hosts hear my prayer listen oh god of Jacob Behold our Defender oh God and look upon the face of your anointed for one day in your courts is better than a thousand I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of ungodliness for the Lord God is both son and shield he will give Grace and Glory no good thing shall the Lord withhold from those who walk with integrity it oh Lord God of hosts blessed are those who put their trust in you glory to the father and to the son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and shall be forever amen our reading from the resurrection narratives is taken from the 21st chapter of the Gospel of St John beginning at the first verse after this Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of tiberias and he revealed himself in this way Simon Peter Thomas called the twin Nathaniel of kaaa in Galilee the sons of zebede and two others of his disciples were together Simon Peter said to them I am going fishing they said to him we will go with you they went out and got into the boat but that night they caught nothing just as day was breaking Jesus stood on the shore yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus Jesus said to them children do you have any fish they answered him no he said to them cast the net on the right side of the boat and you will find some so they cast it and now they were not able to haul it in because of the quantity of fish that disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter it is the Lord and when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord he put on his outer garment for he was stripped for work and threw himself into the sea the other disciples came in the boat dragging the net full of fish for they were not far from the land but about a 100 yards off when they got out on land they saw a charcoal fire in place with fish laid out on it and bread the story goes on and in morning prayer later on in a few days time we shall tell the whole story but for the moment there's one great lesson to be learned from this story you know how Keen I am in not muddling the gospels but giving an Integrity to the story as told by each of the evangelists and certainly when one is in John's gospel the fourth gospel there is original Source material a plenty which is not found in many of the other gospels and yet this story which I've just told is told in similar manner in the synoptic gospels in the sense that at the beginning of St Luke's gospel you find Jesus first of all sitting teaching on the shore of the lake of Galilee or janzer or whatever you would like to call it John calls it the lake of tiberias named after the emperor and when he stopped teaching he says to Simon Peter if you remember cast the boat out and to the sea and catch some fish is the implication and you remember Simon says we fished all night we' caught nothing and Jesus still commands the boat to go out and it tells the story of that miraculous draft of fishes so many that in John's gospel the net always broke that was at the beginning of Jesus's Ministry this one is at the end or if you like at a new beginning a totally new beginning Jesus is standing on the shore and is recognized instantly by the Beloved disciple it is the Lord and Simon Peter always impetuous wanting desper L to get to the feet of Jesus before ever the boat gets there takes off his outer cloes strips himself jumps into the sea and swims to the shore powerfully what happens then is for another day the important lesson for today is that this is a totally new beginning they are in fact obeying a command [Music] command a command that Jesus has given them on the night of his betrayal as they walk towards the Garden of Gethsemane he says I will go before you into Galilee and then you remember when St Mark's gospel ends the women have come to the Tomb in the gray of Dawn and they they find the tomb open the stone rolled back and a young man in a white robe saying to them do not be afraid you seek Jesus of Nazareth he's not here he has risen remember what he said to you after I am risen I will go before you into Galilee there you will find him says the young man it's an extraordinary connection though we're putting two things together which may not need to go together but in St Mark's gospel there is also that tale of the young man who was accompanying the disciples almost secretly on that night to Gethsemane and they try to arrest him but they grab hold of his his uh garment and the young man slips out of it and runs away and here's now another young man who having been with the disciples would have heard what Jesus said however much a coincidence that is or perhaps Mark is giving us some Source material that he himself knew all about what is being said to them is go to Galilee and find a new beginning there and this will be a very different beginning as we shall find out when we read the the whole story for New Beginnings have a stark Simplicity to them and sometimes when things have got too complicated it's time for a a clean sweep this room is full of new seedlings which are about to sprout and grow things in pots which are about to sprout and grow perhaps from bulbs or from little seedlings which have been planted from the propagating trays into the pots or in the cleaners all these things are new beginnings and sometimes that's a necessary aspect of Our Lives things have gone spectacularly wrong for the relationship between Peter and the Lord and He Who has promised so much failed so greatly on the night of the arrest everything was too much for him but Jesus will take that as a signal lesson for Peter he's stepping out of the Sea and the first thing that he sees is a braia set with fish grilling on the coals of the braia the last time he'd been confronted with a braia was in the high priest's Courtyard but that's not all he was confronted with he was confronted with the voice of one of the Servants of the high priest or even a little Maid saying to him you were with them you've got a gallian accent and Peter three times denies that he even knows the man one of the Evangelist says he began to curse and swear I do not even know the man that is the nature of his absolute fall and he goes out and confronts himself with that failure and weeps bitterly here in St John's gospel as we'll see Peter is going to be confronted by that triple denial over again but for the moment it's going to be a new beginning for all of them and the new beginning begins where the old beginning first started the call by the Lakeside when Jesus says come and follow me and in St Luke's gospel from now on you will be catching people for this new way of following the Lord followers of the way as Christians were called all these things speak of some aspect of our faith and pilgrimage which is utterly necessary sometimes think of the the pilgrims in Pilgrims Progress so often they wander off the way having not really listened to the directions given by those who gave them wise advice they listen to others they found themselves off track Christian falls asleep and the certificate the the role he has in his breast which shows that he's entered by the right gate falls out because he's been careless with it and rolls all the way down the hill and he runs right down the hill and grasps it thank goodness and comes back singing he falls he picks himself up he starts again battered and bruised by giant despair it takes them a long time Christian and hopeful to remember that they've got the key of Promise in their pocket and that key opens the door and lets them out of the dungeons of the giant so that they can get back onto the highway of Salvation all those things are imageries illustrations which John buan cleverly gives us in that 17th century book which has become so precious to Christians New Beginnings Fresh Starts remember what he said to you after I am risen I will go before you into Galilee and the young man says there you will find him well here they are and the road ahead of them is certainly not going to be all roses is going to be a difficult way that we can explore in other morning on other mornings but for the moment remember the necessity sometimes of letting All Things Come Together which might seem completely hostile to the way you were going and yet at the end they have prompted you to make the clean sweep the new beginning a pointer from Heaven itself that this is the way you must go now this is an anniversary a special anniversary really because uh it's the day in 1593 when the poet and priest George Herbert was born he was born into a well-to-do family uh the herberts were ears of Pembrook and the Wilton House of the O of Pembrook is still there very beautiful house just near the city of Salsbury in sight of its Cathedral with its tall Spire Herbert when he became a priest having given up public life took the little Parish of bemon nearby and from bemon I know it very well from my years in the Salsbury dasis you can easily see the Spire of Salsbury cathedral but Herbert's charge as a priest to his people was just in that small community there and he kept that charge Faithfully saying his prayers in the little church there Day by Day morning prayer and evening prayer and at the same time carrying out the duties of a parish priest he set those down in a helpful handbook for cloudy afterwards saying how they must visit and stand beside their people and take an interest in all that their people were doing in their daily lives maybe talking about the things in their Garden or talking about how in Clement the weather was that year something of this sort but music was dear to Herbert's heart and on a particular night each week he would walk into Salsbury towards the great spire and find friends with whom he could make music and at the same time in his short Ministry for he died within three years of going there he was never a very well person so he died quite young and uh while he was there he wrote not only this little handbook which was called a priest of the temple but at the same time he wrote poetry and his poetry and the other book were both printed after his death by his friend at little Gidding Nicholas Farah but the Poetry was such that there was a mystical quality about it but also a a downto earth quality about what it meant to pray what it meant to have aspects of the Kingdom of Heaven in your life what it meant to make a new beginning having shared responsibilities or having not noticed the call of Christ for you in the past some of those have been turned into hymns one of them king of glory king of peace I will love thee and another one of enormous Joy let all the world in every corner sing my God and King perhaps the most famous of all teach me my God and King in all things see to see and what I do in everything to do it as for thee a man that looks on glass on it may stay his eye or if he pleases slow it pass and there the heaven aspy all may of thee partake nothing can be so mean that with this tincture for for thy sake it will grow bright and clean a servant with this claws makes drudgery Divine who sweeps a room as for thy laws makes that and the action fine this is the famous stone that turneth all to gold for that which God doth touch and own cannot for less be told it's a wonderful poem and it means that the meanest task the sweeping of a room is made Holy by the Clause I'm doing this for your sake it's following the sense of vocation in some way all illustrations of the Christian life but perhaps the very best Herbert poem is the one of invitation which Jesus gave to his disciples to share the Passover with him before the uh um betrayal and arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane and that invitation to come and share the meal in the upper room was the Prelude to giving them the capacity and vocation to go forward with that work after the new beginning in Galilee Herbert sees that as an invitation born from God's love for love is the key to all these things and perhaps that's the poem we know him best by and the most gracious of all his poems this one runs and you'll know it well love bade me welcome yet my soul Drew back guilty of dust and sin but quick eyed love observing me grow slack from my first entrance in Drew nearer to me sweetly questioning in if I lacked anything a guest I answered worthy to be here love said You shall be he I the unkind ungrateful oh my dear I cannot look on thee love took my hand and smiling did reply who made the eyes but I truth Lord but I have marred them let my shame go where it does deserve and know you not says love Who Bore the blame my dear then I will serve you must sit down says love and taste my meat so I did sit and eat it's one of the most beautiful of all Christian poems because it speaks of the gracious invitation and every excuse that is made love bears the blame and takes the consequences and sits the one who has been invited down to enjoy the meal which love has prepared and illustration a poetic Parable and yet at the same time a wonderful invitation into life and new beginnings and any excuses are set aside not in our own mind by cloaking them but by the love of Christ accepting them wholeheartedly and bearing them for us that is the atmosphere of all these Resurrection stories and as we tell them morning by morning we shall find different dimensions of that new beginning and different dimensions of how a new beginning can be a new course in life resting on our mistakes from the past but having them totally forgiven because we felt such sorry for them and as the sun rises on a new day so that new day will be a sign of New Beginnings it's marvelous to be in this Easter season even with the wind howling outside the freshness of that scene by the Sea of Galilee where they have all come not knowing the momentous meeting they are about to have the freshness of all of that washes our hearts clean and causes us all to know once again that every morning can be a new beginning as we walk as followers of the way so let's say the the college for Easter tide special prayer and as we do so bring into our hearts and Minds those who are being affected not just by this particular storm though I'm sure many Travelers are finding the way in this pouring rain and driving wind um difficult but across the world there will be many many more situations of of climate and hardship and war that are much much worse than anything that we see outside here and we pray for any who are in difficulty danger grief loneliness hopelessness crying out for New Beginnings and often times a word from us of kindness a word from us of encouragement is the one thing that will make people think maybe I will go on and maybe I do need a new beginning and the word of encouragement could come day by day if they are near neighbors or people with whom we are in touch so give thanks to God for New Beginnings as we read the Easter collect and think of those who need your help and your prayers Lord of all life and power who through the mighty resurrection of your son overcame the the old order of sin and death to make All Things New in him grant that we being dead to sin and alive to you in Jesus Christ May reign with him in glory to whom with you and the Holy Spirit be praise and honor glory and might now and in all eternity amen so we say together the prayer Our Lord 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 coincidences are strange things and when we were in uh Toronto a couple of weeks ago and uh fent and Iowa were there as I took the retreat for the Bishops of Ontario under their Archbishop uh gathered in the evening um we had conversation which caused us to get to know them but earlier in in the day I'd mentioned George Herbert for some other reason and there was a cry of of from one of them as she she sat there the bishop of Niagara Susan and uh she suddenly said oh George Herbert and I hadn't realized that she uh that day had got her doctorate her doctoral thesis passed by the university and her doctoral thesis was on George Herbert well that was a small coincidence compared with what happened next next because I discovered then and I was to discover through worshiping in the cathedral also that she was married to the lad when I knew him earlier who used to be the head cor at Salsbury Cathedral Thomas Bell his name was and now he was the director of Music at the Cathedral in Toronto and his wife the bishop of Niagara and we we all came together in the end and Thomas was there with great excitement Tom Bell he'd recognized me I when I saw him recognized him and now we're connected again and it seemed almost as though lots and lots of new beginnings and connections were happening I don't think I'd seen uh Tom Bell for oh goodness there was how many years because he'd been uh there at at Salsbury Cathedral and was the closest friend and this and the other one was a deputy cor Nicholas turble whom I've known throughout the whole of my life but Tom was a new fine and Tom said said oh do put me in touch with Nick and many connections were made uh and I know that at some stage we shall have lots of conversations about George Herbert with his wife and and lots of memories from the past with Tom as well so one is always looking for coincidences to bring New Beginnings but also to make connections again with people that we knew well that maybe for a while have lost so let's bow our heads and and uh receive the Easter blessing 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 in the blessing of God Almighty the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit be among you and remain with you always amen so outside the the wind continues I don't think we'll see much change today but perhaps tomorrow we'll be ready for a new beginning and the sun may rise and show its head again go well until we meet again