good morning and welcome to the january garden at canterbury cathedral on this monday the 29th of november it is an icy morning but the sun is absolutely beautiful in a pure blue sky and shining on the cathedral church and on the deanery and yet we've had the heaviest frost and really the first real frost of this year this morning when i walked out to matins in the cathedral early the thrushes were singing at the top of the lime trees on green courts beautiful songs but the car was like an igloo in front of me covered in shining frost and this really sees a footstep towards winter as advent begins we've uh in our hearts and minds uh many people who are still suffering from the results of storm arwin there are people who have been uh almost marooned in the snow drifts in the yorkshire dales in a in a pub for three days now and still roads are being cleared and people still very much suffering from the results of that storm but you will have instances across the world where weather conditions are proving both hazardous and dangerous and even life-threatening so bring your own concerns as we say our prayers on this first monday of the advent season coming together here in the garden as i came out too there was the um crescent shape of a dying moon bright in the sky and by the week end before christmas that will have transformed itself once again through new moon and right through to full moon so we look forward to the waxing of the moon over these advent weeks as it dies to new moon status at the end of this week all these things we bring together in our hearts and minds as we begin a different journey this morning and in our reflection we will come to that but let's begin our prayers and we're using the advent prayers this morning oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise reveal among us the light of your presence that we may behold your power and glory blessed are you sovereign god of all to you be praise and glory forever in your tender compassion the dawn from on high is breaking upon us to dispel the lingering shadows of night as we look for your coming among us this day 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 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 psalm on this 29th morning of the month is psalm 139 and we'll say most of its verses now oh lord you have searched me out and known me you know my sitting down and my rising up you discern my thoughts from afar you mark out my journeys and my resting place and are acquainted with all my ways for there is not a word on my tongue but you will lord know it altogether you encompass me behind and before and lay your hand upon me such knowledge is too wonderful for me so high that i cannot attain it where can i go then from your spirit or where can i flee from your presence if i climb up to heaven you are there if i go down into hell you are there also if i take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea even there your hand shall lead me your right hand hold me fast if i say per adventure the darkness will cover me and the light around me turn to night even darkness is no darkness with you the night is as clear as the day darkness and light to you are both alike for you yourself created my inmost parts you knit me together in my mother's womb i thank you for i am fearfully and wonderfully made marvelous are your works my soul knows well my frame was not hidden from you when i was made in secret and woven in the depths of the earth your eyes beheld my form as yet unfinished already in your book were all my members written as day by day they were fashioned when as yet there was none of them how deep are your counsels to me oh god how great is the sum of them if i count them they are more in number than the sand and at the end i am still in your presence search me out o god and know my heart try me and examine my thoughts see if there is any way of wickedness in me and lead me in the way everlasting a good psalm for the first monday of advent a psalm of judgment and of searching a psalm of god knowing us through and through but also revealing himself to us in so many different ways we're starting a a different journey today and it's a journey that will take us most of the way to christmas before the weekend before christmas we begin another of the books which will help us through to christmas day itself we're going to start together probably the least known of the epistles in the new testament it's the epistle to the hebrews and as we begin it we'll just say something about it and why we're doing this today i'm going to read chapter one but first of all let's say that from the earliest times it's been thought that this isn't one of paul's epistles and the reasons given are cogent but the biggest reason is that it's written in the most elegant form of greek and very unlike saint paul's writings also the imagery used is of a different kind from paul and there's a measure of agreement that it seems to have been written in alexandria probably about the year 60 80 10 years before the destruction of the temple and the carnage of the roman destruction of jerusalem itself and the scattering of the people but from alexandria it looks as though this epistle and one can't be certain about anything but it looks as though this epistle was sent to a group of jewish christians in rome who were beginning to feel a degree of sentimental attachment to the past and looking towards the temple and all its activity as a center of everything and of practice which they were she was a hankering after in rome and this writer chooses to set out a completely different kind of pilgrimage it's another exodus if you like and many of the illustrations used will take us back to the exodus and even to the book genesis and also to the psalms in enormous measure remember the psalms as you might say the hymn book which jesus himself knew and quoted freely from but everything that we shall be looking at is trying to give a completely different dimension to that new exodus it's calling people to believe that their journey in this finite world is a pilgrimage taken by them as wayfarers and journeyers towards a city but it's an eternal city a holy city a different kind of land of promise and the imagery used is really quite wonderful but it's complex and we'll thread our way through it in this week and the week after and the week after until we get to the weekend before christmas by which time we shall come to her we shall have come to a conclusion of this exodus shall we say in which we are involved though our hankering back to the past is quite often a very different kind of hankering and as we move ourselves forward it's that yearning for the eternal dimension which god promises us even now when we bear his image in this mortal life so let's read the first chapter of the letter to the hebrews and you might say well who's written it and there have been plenty of guesses at that early early on there were guesses about who had written this book and it was thought to have a kind of apostolic authority but where was it coming from some and uh there have been many uh who thought this thought it was written by apollos who is mentioned of course as someone who spoke well and and spoke the the greek language well others have thought it was by barnabas because uh barnabas was a levite and there's much detail here but also had apostolic authority my friend uh our friend andy mead the the former rector of st thomas fifth avenue who now lives in rhode island with his wife nancy was a great proponent of the fact that this is barnabas writing the levitical details are all in his hand but others have even thought that it was written by priscilla of aquila and priscilla companions of saint paul oftentimes when he is coming to different churches so the puzzle is always going to be there and we have to say does it really matter it's an interesting puzzle but for the moment let's read chapter one and that forms the epistle in our book of common prayer the older prayer book the epistle for christmas day and so we're in good company in preparing ourselves for christmas by reading the epistle to the hebrews chapter one long ago at many times and in many ways god spoke to our ancestors by the prophets but in these last days he has spoken to us by his son whom he appointed the heir of all things through whom also he created the world he is the radiance of the glory of god and the exact imprint of his nature and he upholds the universe by the word of his power after making purification for sins he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs for to which of the angels did god ever say you are my son today i have begotten you or again i will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son and again when he brings the firstborn into the world he says let all god's angels worship him of the angels he says he makes his angels winds and his ministers a flame of fire but of the sun he says your throne oh god is forever and ever the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness therefore god your god has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions and you lord laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning and the heavens are the work of your hands they will perish but you remain they will all wear out like a garment and like a robe you will roll them up like a garment they will be changed but you are the same and your years will have no end and to which of the angels has he ever said sit at my right hand until i make your enemies a footstool for your feet are they not all ministering spirits sent out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation the christmas epistle from the book of common prayer but at the same time full of imagery and sentences mostly from the psalms you can look that up and check the references in your scriptures there are too many to mention this morning but each of them is taken from the psalms the psalms which jesus knew and the psalms which when he is finally talking to his disciples saying farewell to them right at the end of saint louis gospel are added to that how the that that that sentence how the law and the prophets and the psalms spoke of him and what's the writer trying to say don't even imagine that the anointed son of god is simply an angelic form his humanity is all that we have just read and now in glory he takes his seat with the father as the eternal word on christmas morning we shall read the first chapter of the gospel of saint john in the beginning was the word the capital letter w and the word was with god and the word god was and the word was god the same was in the beginning with god all things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made and all of that is encompassed in that very elegant first paragraph he is the radiance of the glory of god and the exact imprint of his nature that uh that word in the greek is the word used when the seal of someone of some you know physical seal is put into the wax to form the imprint and here is the imprint of god in the physical person of jesus of nazareth in his earthly life but the dimensions are eternal dimensions of the eternal word made flesh and dwelling amongst us so we begin our journey with the writer to the hebrews at this time and we give thanks for the way in which that writer i won't even say he or she because we have no idea and as i said some people think it was priscilla who wrote this epistle but whether it was barnabas or apollos or priscilla the imagery is there and although the old temple which had but only 10 at the most years to run if we dated it 60 a.d before its total destruction the old temple was a place which jesus himself saw as as his father's house which should be full of holiness and the gifts of the creator given to humanity but he found it otherwise and yet now this writer is saying to those in rome don't think of that for we in our exodus in this if you if you like wilderness of this world wherever we're wandering in our exodus we journey as strangers and pilgrims and wayfarers towards an eternal city and those images will come very strongly as this as this epistle develops so let's think of some dates on this monday morning of advent the first monday of advent let me just mention um with uh sorry the passing of stephen sondheim on friday he is very well known as a writer a lyricist and composer and so many of his musical shows became very famous indeed sweeney todd the demon barber of fleet streets sunday in the park with george into the woods more recently those and of course most famous of all west side story and so many of these turned into films so that people are mourning the loss of one who was so creative with music and with words and in in films which entertained us but let's remember on this day in the uh year uh 1898 c.s lewis was born he was born in ireland and it's thought that the narnia chronicles came from his love of the mountains of mourn going down to the sea in northern ireland a beautiful place i've never been there but they stay in my mind because we used to have records of the australian baritone or low baritone base really uh peter dawson who was a favorite voice of my parents singing and he sang so many songs which were well known to us like the cornish floral dance and all of those but he is saying that lovely song the mountains of mourn rolled down to the sea and that song is written as a song from someone working in london digging up the road if you like and thinking of his girlfriend back near the mountains of mourn which rolled down to the sea so that's an image in my mind this morning and it obviously stayed in c.s lewis's mind but his life was not lived out there mostly we think of him in oxford as a professor of of literature but also as a theologian and a philosopher and a writer and a novelist and a thinker of all kinds of imagination if we think of the things that he wrote then probably that the whole of his conversion to christianity is covered and he was he was baptized as a as a christian but he he lost that sense of faith and then tells the story of how he regained it much of that was due to conversations with one of his friends at oxford j.r.r tolkien who would walk with him and talk about things but many others too and lewis sets it all out in that book which many of you will have read surprised by joy which tells how when he fell on his knees and in the end um gave way to the fact that he was accepting the faith he described himself at that time as the most miserable convert uh in terms of really not having wanted to do so but they led him that far but of course that changed very soon and his his wartime broadcasts about the christian faith and those broadcasts are now enshrined in the book mere christianity uh those wartime broadcasts were heartening to the nation as they were given but at the same time so many books reflections on the psalms one of them that he dedicated to his friend austin farah who was such an influence on my thinking and and and uh my my way of understanding the scriptures and at the same time of course we remember his screwtape letters the letters of a senior devil to a junior devil done with humor but containing uh the the seeds of so many truths of the way in which we tend to fall into temptation and the senior devil is is advising the junior devil how to to make people fall into temptation but probably he's best known of course because of not only the films but of the books which children love but everyone loves of the land of narnia which in all its images sets out the good news of the gospel and we have caused to remember here in 2011 archbishop rowan williams's set of holy week lectures on narnia and an interpretation of that for us and the way in which our journeyings as strangers and pilgrims and wayfarers seeking for an eternal city but bearing the good news and the imprint of christ was expressed in narnia with azlan the lion and the children's characters and so many other characters representing both good and evil and i remember the three titles which rowan gave to those lectures not a tame lion was the first the second i only tell you your own story and the third bigger inside than out speaking of course of the wardrobe but speaking of much much more and rowan opened up that land of narnia as he opened up the gospels and the scriptures and all that lewis was trying to give in his teaching but as i say his mind was going back to childhood times and he kept revisiting ireland in that way the mountains of mourn at the same time having his base in oxford with the inklings his friend whom he was his friends whom he would discuss things with and all of them would read paragraphs and chapters from their books tolkien was writing the lord of the rings at the time and lewis writing his narnia chronicles they're very very different books but both of them very fervent and faithful christians in different communions uh tolkien a a lifelong roman catholic and lewis became very much an anglican with a wide embrace of all christian denominations and mere christianity gives you that wide embrace as to all of his books on the 22nd of november 2013 22nd of november is the day he died just hours before president kennedy was assassinated and his his death announcements were sort of um almost set aside because of all that was going on in the world following that assassination in 1963 but that was his death day his year's mind and in 2013 on the 22nd of november a stone was placed in poet's corner for c.s lewis and uh archbishop rowan uh uh then no longer the archbishop but coming from academic life himself came to preach the uh shall we say the the tribute to c.s lewis and on the stone is lewis's sentence i believe in christianity as i believe that the sun has risen not only because i see it but because by it i see everything else great words and we will all have our favorite characters our favorite passages of c.s lewis i'm sure but we remember him with thanksgiving on this anniversary of his birth in 1898 talking of c.s lewis reminds me of our friends mark and becky lanier who live outside houston in texas and have created there of their own home and their grounds a retreat center with a byzantine chapel and also a wonderful library and it has so many c.s lewis book series first editions and also some of the original drawings which were made for those first editions of the books a lovely collection to see and also there are things like vessels in which the dead sea scrolls were found that it's a wonderful place to go but scholars are invited there to spend time in those places where they can stay too a place of hospitality to give refreshment to shall we say pilgrims on their journey to the eternal city from all over the world people go there and we give thanks for the hospitality of mark and becky lanier in their center there just outside houston in texas now on this day also um in 1832 the 29th of november louisa may alcott was born and she too was someone who in her writing looked back to the image of her childhood and growing up with her sisters and her place was not the mountains of mourn but the lovely town of concord in massachusetts it's an historic place and when you go there hardly anything in the center has changed from her day because it's what you might call a heritage site and motoring there last last time as we went along in the car suddenly as the woods opened up and green fields were there there were um a flocks of wild turkeys uh with two male turkeys displaying themselves amazingly with their great uh fan-shaped tails and and all their prospective wives standing around in total admiration so we can think of of of that this morning but concord itself is an historic place because of uh the origins of of the the fighting which started at the american war of independence the american revolution but at the same time it's a place where louisa m alcott grew up having not been born there but moved there quite quickly and orchard house is kept as a memorial to her there and at the same time she remembered growing up with her sisters and right through the years of the awful civil war in the states 1861 to 1865 she was writing little women which as as you well know the story of those four meg and joe and beth and amy she changed the names but she was going back to her own life and imagining forward and giving people encouragement it was published in 1868 as the civil war ended and people needed to rebuild and go on with their pilgrimage in that wilderness and we remember also this morning our friend jane who lives there and send our greetings to her but concorde is both a real place but in louisa m alcott's mind like c.s lewis's mountains of mourne a place which her memory has recreated in a different way to help people forward and here we go back to the writer of the epistle to the hebrews who takes the psalms and takes the exodus stories and then takes the life of jesus looking back and then gives it to those who are making that journey now and looking forward with eternal dimensions and qualities of the kingdom of heaven we can do that with our memories and try to retain that which is truthful and at the same time as the psalmist says it's god who knows us inside out and who judges and who can forgive and make a new beginning of each day the gift of this new day we shall look back in many memories things prompt us to remember things prompt us also to imagine but things prompt us also to show the qualities of the kingdom of heaven to which we tend even now here in this mortal life and that is one of the great messages of advent which we keep on this first monday of advent as our journey goes forward let's uh say our prayers then on this particular day and we're praying today on this monday morning for the diocese of edoarnae in nigeria in the ondo province and we're praying too in this diocese for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover for emma bishop at lambeth and for the parishes of benefits which is called the saxon shoreline not seven parishes and with some beautiful churches there said martin's oldington saint peter and st paul bilsington sint romworld bonnington st mary canardington the church of the good shepherd at ham street the church of saint mary at allston the church of saint mary magdalene at rockhinge and the churches in matthew at warehorn we think of the life of all those communities and bring your own prayers and intentions and concerns as our advent journey begins and we say as we shall each morning the collect for advent almighty god give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and to put on the armor of light now in the time of this mortal life in which your son jesus christ came to visit us in great humility that when he shall come again on the last day in his glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead we may rise to the life immortal through him who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever are men so we say in our own language and in our own way the prayer our savior taught us as pilgrims and wayfarers towards the eternal city 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 much of reflection for our own prayers so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] christ the son of righteousness shine upon you scatter the darkness from before your path and make you ready to meet him when he comes in glory and the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the holy spirit be upon you upon those whom you would pray for and those whom you love today and always are men [Music] tonight in the the west end of london the lights will go dark for two minutes in memory of stephen sondheim so we give thanks for all who by their creative ability are able to create such entertainment for people keep morale high and also imagine things in music and in words