good morning and a very warm welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of friday the 15th of january as we come to say our morning prayers at last the rain has stopped after three days when it seemed not to stop at all so we came out into the garden this morning knowing that we could once again film in the fresh air and be with you in the fresh air wherever you are in the world bring your own prayers and intentions as we say our morning prayers together we didn't quite know where to come in the garden because it's very much winter time here and there's little leaf and flower although in fact in the orchard here all around me little shoots of daffodils are springing up and other plants getting ready for the spring but it's it's a way off yet nevertheless when we came past this patch of the garden the sweet scented honeysuckle lanisra fragrantissima suddenly arrested us by its scent it's here behind me flowering with its smaller flowers than the regular honeysuckle but the scent is overpowering i think it's enjoyed the three days of rain and we're back with our golden flowered friend the mahonia which also has a scent but the honeysuckle has taken over this morning in a very big way what you can see between you and me as you look to your right the bare fruit tree there is an asian pear but that's a long way off showing any kind of leaf yet but there's bird life around and robin's singing here in the garden as we say our prayers on this friday morning oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise your light springs up for the righteous and all the peoples have seen your glory blessed are you sovereign god king of the nations to you be praise and glory forever from the rising of the sun to its setting your name is proclaimed in all the world as the sun of righteousness dawns in our hearts anoint our lips with the seal of your spirit that we may witness to your gospel and sing your praise in all the earth 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 oh god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever our men our morning psalm on this 15th morning of the month is psalm 77 i'll read that now i cry aloud to god i cry aloud to god and he will hear me in the day of my trouble i have sought the lord by night my hand is stretched out and does not tire my soul refuses comfort i think upon god and i groan i ponder and my spirit faints you will not let my eyelids close i am so troubled that i cannot speak i consider the days of old i remember the years long past i commune with my heart in the night my spirit searches for understanding will the lord cast us off forever will he no more show us his favor has his loving mercy clean gone forever has his promise come to an end forevermore has god forgotten to be gracious has he shut up his compassion in displeasure and i said my grief is this that the right hand of the most high has lost its strength i will remember the works of the lord and call to mind your wonders of old time i will meditate on all your works and ponder your mighty deeds your way o god is holy who is so great a god is our god you are the god who worked wonders and declared your power among the peoples with a mighty arm you redeemed your people the children of jacob and joseph the waters saw you o god the waters saw you and were afraid the depths also were troubled the clouds poured out water the skies thundered your arrows flashed on every side the voice of your thunder was in the whirlwind your lightnings lit up the ground the earth trembled and shook your way was in the sea and your paths in the great waters but your footsteps were not known you led your people like sheep by the hand of moses and aaron as i've said many times there's every kind of mood in the psalms and here's someone feeling in their thoughts and prayers that they're in a low point at the beginning and god seems to be absent but they hold on and begin to think of blessings from the past and become really newly determined to go on so at this time of pandemic and lockdown when we are um in a a state when we're thinking will the springtime ever come will we ever be together again a psalm like that with the psalmist writing there gives us the same kind of feeling first of all from the psalmist and then the thought that in their meditations they will look back on the lord's works in the past in their own lives and in the past in the history of our face and that we remember this morning as we turn to the gospel of sin mark and i'm reading from where we left off yesterday chapter 2 and we have jesus coming back to capernaum which has become his home after some days jesus returned to capernaum and news went round that he was at home and such a crowd collected there there was no room for them even in the space outside the door while he was proclaiming the message to them a man was brought who was paralyzed four men were carrying him but because of the crowd they could not get him near so they made an opening in the roof over the place where jesus was and when they had broken through they lowered the bed on which the paralyzed man was lying when he saw their face jesus said to the man my son your sins are forgiven now there were some scribes sitting there thinking to themselves how can the fellow talk like that it is blasphemy who but god can forgive sins jesus knew at once what they were thinking and said to them why do you harbour such thoughts is it easier to say to this paralyzed man your sins are forgiven or to say stand up take up your bed and walk but to convince you that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins he turned to the paralyzed man i say to you stand up take your bed and go home and he got up and at once took his bed and went out in full view of them all so that they were astounded and praised god never before they said have we seen anything like this several important things in that little here's the word again pericope that little story which has been put in just there by synthmark first and foremost let's think of capernaum and the place that that has begun to take in the ministry of jesus the crowd saw that he was at home we're not told where as i said yesterday these gospels aren't biographies they are vehicles for giving us the good news which jesus himself proclaims but they are glimpses of what's going on and already we saw jesus entering the house of simon and andrew and simon's mother-in-law being ill and jesus uh healing her giving her comfort and the mother-in-law of simon i'm rising to serve them and we get a sense that maybe this headquarters at capernaum is simon and andrew's house who can know we don't know what we do know is that the crowds know that this is where he's come home he's been traveling around galilee and that speed continues in st mark's gospel but we're not now in a sequential consecutive kind of story mark has strung the beads together and we look at each one of them and here we are in capernaum and the crowd is so great and the four friends of the man on the bed come and can't get anywhere near jesus and say they climb up onto the roof and maybe they've gone round the back way and gone up the stairs onto the roof and cut through in some way or another the uh roof space so they can lower the bed so that jesus can see their friend and there to the astonishment of the crowd jesus heals the man but he heals him in a special way he says my son your sins are forgiven as though the totality of the man's mortal being any disorders that occur there are all being healed by the salvation and the good news that the anointed one brings but that realization is very much in its infancy at the moment and there are scribes sitting there remember yesterday when jesus was talking in the synagogue um we heard that the people said there's authority here not like our own scribes well maybe the scribes and the lawyers and the the folk who felt themselves authoritative before are having their nose put out of joint a bit but there's no hostility not yet although they do murmur it says within themselves but jesus sees by their faces what's happening and he said is it easier for me to say your sins are forgiven or rise take your bed and walk and then we come to a very important sentence but to show you that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins he turns to the paralyzed man get up take your bed and go home he locates the man back into his home and there's astonishment but the three words to notice are son of man that's what jesus calls himself it's the first time that's occurred here and that son of man rather than what mark says at the beginning the son of god the beginning of the gospel of jesus christ the son of god that realization is far away yet as the gospel develops for the moment jesus calls himself the son of man he's taken perhaps that phrase from the book of daniel the prophet there is that that that vision in daniel the prophet where you find the vision which the the writer is having of the great courts of heaven and one like an ancient of days the old translation used to say one ancient in years sitting and one like a son of man now that actually is just the word that you might give for a child of humanity but jesus gives himself that title and the one who like the son of man in the book of daniel is standing before the ancient of days is given commission for a particular work both of judgment and also the perfection of our humanity and that becomes really important as we hear jesus again and again talking of himself as the son of man identifying with that figure with that commission the moment i hear the word ancient of days i'm instantly taken to the hymn by william chalmers smith which you'll know well immortal invisible god only wise enlightened accessible hid from our eyes most blessed most glorious the ancient of days almighty victorious thy great name we praise unresting unhasting and silent as light nor wanting nor wasting thou rulest in might their justice like mountains high soaring above like clouds which are fountains of goodness and love now some there are two more verses and some have seen that him as not in the least bit incarnation or speaking of jesus i would beg to differ there's one line in this hymn which is the most important of all which lays right across the periphery we've just heard and it's in verse three to all life thou givist to both great and small and here's the line in all life thou livest the true life of all we blossom and flourish like leaves on the tree and wither and perish but naught changes the in all life thou livest the true life of all think of the beginning of saint john's gospel in the beginning was the word always given a capital letter or as we believe the eternal son of god and here the son of man is living out that perfect life in all life thou livest but we see that also in all aspects of creation and we ourselves fit into that creation which christ has come to give good news to the son of man sent and commissioned by the ancient of days that him is truly wonderful great father of glory pure father of light thine angels adore thee all veiling their sight oh lord we would render oh help us to see which is only the splendor of light hideth thee a great hymn but what happens at the end of this pericope when the life is lived out and wholeness of life is restored by the son of man having been given that commission and is just beginning to work that out why the people give glory to god the last bit of that thericopy and for me the hymn sums it all up within the context of creation and life well this is a day when we might begin to think of aspects of life which have happened on this january the 15th and and i wanted to begin i could go to so many places with this because there are many many things we could think of today i've just chosen uh five and uh in 1559 elizabeth the first was crowned queen of england in westminster abbey the last monarch of the tudor dynasty and she became queen at the age of 26 unexpectedly for first when henry viii died her brother edward vi reigned he was not a a person who's had good health and died after a short reign and then her sister her elder sister the daughter of queen catherine of aragon became queen mary and during that time the roman catholic church and the legate everything was restored and then mary having married philip ii of spain died herself and then elizabeth came to the throne a period of disruption and dislocation with short reigns and swinging backwards and forwards in this way and that but on this day with the coronation of elizabeth the first the elizabethan age began and when we look back on that age we see first what a very wise monarch elizabeth the first was and how at that time when the pope said how is it that this woman who is queen of half an island is able to terrify the king of spain and france and the holy roman emperor i don't understand it well the personality of elizabeth herself was very much at the root of all of that a wise monarch one of her great sayings was the latin tag video at takayo i see and i keep silent she may have kept silence but she surrounded herself with very wise statesmen and head of them all uh william cecil uh lord burley at the time and however people seem to be charming her whether it be the earl of leicester or the other essex on the wise advisors and that was very much placed on the cecil family who became in the end the markers of salisbury all the way through if you come through history but the cecil family were giving wise advice and nothing in terms of her passions turned the advice that the monarch gave her hands were those of a monarch her mind and her wisdom were those of a monarch and she crafted her nation into the power it became we give thanks for that reign but we give thanks also for the establishment of the way in which we episcopal anglicans do things with our prayer book because elizabeth brought back the book of common prayer which had been of course abolished in queen mary's reign but she made little alterations so that it could become much more acceptable to the various parties ecclesial traditions within her church and that 1559 prayer book was to last until oliver cromwell made it a criminal document but it came back in 1660 and has been revised again and again but the rhythms of daily prayer and the ordering of the sacraments in our particular strand of the holy catholic church is something that we treasure and are actually involved in this morning simply saying the psalms hearing the scriptures read at a rhythmic time of day and according to the seasons of the year we give thanks for that and for the creativity of art and drama it was the age of shakespeare christopher marlowe who went to school here and all of the the kind of drama that we think of at that time we think of the art of the reign of elizabeth we also think of people like sir francis drake opening up the world circumnavigating the globe and so walter raleigh bringing back all kinds of things from the americas and virginia being being uh um founded and named after the virgin queen as she was called so that potatoes and music and tobacco and all sorts of things not such a a popular thing these days tobacco but at the time riley thought it was a wonderful thing and so did many people from then on the last bit of wise advice from elizabeth who changed her title to henry viii who called himself the supreme head of the church elizabeth called herself the supreme governor of the church her task was simply to see that all things were done according to right christ was the supreme head of the church and is the supreme head of the church but she said do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested wise advice from for any any leader and what were the other things i was thinking of well today we register in 1759 january the 15th the opening of the british museum which is so enriched our lives through i mention also the death of emma lady hamilton in 1815 10 years after the one with whom she had a daughter horatio lord nelson who was killed at trafalgar in 1805. but i meant mention her because next door just over the wall here lord nelson's brother lived as a cannon of canterbury cathedral and he received the earldom in gratitude for what his brother had done but emma lady hamilton and the daughter horatio became a guest here on many occasions both in lineker house next door and also in the deanery itself it's social occasions so we remember that but we remember too on this day now i'm coming farther forward 2001 was the birthday of wikipedia and 20 years ago that encyclopedia on the internet the free encyclopedia spreading across the internet founded by jimmy wales and larry sanger i don't know what we do without it now because we we refer to it all the time it's the easiest thing in the world to access and you don't have to carry encyclopedia britannica around with you anymore and then finally i wanted to say that on this day and it's an amazing thing to think of in 2004 an australia regular train service from adelaide all the way through to darwin that's 2975 kilometers went for the first time and that trip is one that many would like to take it goes right across the continent of australia so we give thanks for those who built that line and remember again the way in which those who have traveled in particular ways have brought back not only a combination of cultures but also the courage to sort of thrive on through back with our son they had difficult times it stopped and started the line was begun i think in 1911 but then it's then in 2004 reached all the way through and we give thanks for that on this day as an image of keeping on keeping on being dogged as i said about our two tortoises when they set out on a journey achilles and athena last week okay let's say our prayers on this morning of the 15th of january we're praying in the anglican communion today for the diocese of aguata in the church of nigeria and then in this diocese as we pray for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover tim bishop atlantis we're praying for all children and young people in the diocese that this really hard time i mean within the bounds of the diocese that's half of kent but we might add our prayers for children and young people the world over having to learn their lessons so many of them online and finding the difficulties of not being there together physically to give each other encouragement so let's say our prayers and bring your own prayers wherever you are to the time of prayer and from our prayer book we say the special prayer for this week the eternal father who at the baptism of jesus revealed him to be your son anointing him with the holy spirit grant to us who are born again by water and the spirit that we may be faithful to our calling as your adopted children through jesus christ our lords are men so we say together the prayer that our lord taught us in whatever language we like to use our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever are men so a moment of silence now for your own prayers 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 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 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