good morning and welcome to the dinery garden at canterbury cathedral on this tuesday the 10th of november we are keeping these days between remembrance sunday on the last sunday the eighth and tomorrow the 11th of november the armistice day when it's 11 o'clock in the morning we shall keep two minutes silence for those who have died in conflict throughout the ages and so our themes although continuing the regular reading of our new testament book our themes have an aspect of remembrance day by day as you'll see i'm choosing to sit here because as we think of those who suffered at home and away this before the second world war was a beautiful orangery and that was destroyed at the bombing of the deanery here in 1940 before ever the huge baideca rage which caused the city of canterbury to be a fireball really to the to the south of the cathedral and caused massive destruction in the precincts itself before that this would have been a lovely orangery at the end of the war of course there were no materials or resources to build again and so now it's a lovely little courtyard but we remember destruction across the world in places that before were quiet and safe and i think in our reflection we shall dwell on that quite a lot we remember in years gone by this november the 10th on the november 10th 1871 henry morton stanley who was a welsh journalist and explorer who was sent to africa to find david david livingston found him at ujiji on lake tanganyika and remember uttered the famous words dr livingstone i presume he'd been sent by his newspaper to find him and he died on this day in 1871 in 1925 the famous welsh actor richard burton was born so two welshman h.m stanley and richard burton and then in 1944 tim rice was born so famous for his collaboration with andrew lloyd webber in joseph and his amazing technicolor dreamcoat jesus christ superstar a visa and all kinds of musical entertainment so we give thanks for that creativity perhaps one last name in 2015 helmut schmidt died who from 1974 to 1982 was the chancellor of west germany and a very respected european statesman so let's begin our prayers and then we'll reflect on many things when we come to our reading of scripture oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise let your ways be known upon earth your saving power among the nations blessed are you lord god of our salvation to you be praise and glory forever as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief your only son was lifted up that he might draw the whole world to himself may we walk this day in the way of the cross and always be ready to share its weight declaring your love for all the world 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 and 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 tenth morning of the month is psalm 50. the lord the most mighty god has spoken and called the world from the rising of the sun to its setting out of zion perfect in beauty god shines forth our god comes and will not keep silence consuming fire goes out before him and a mighty tempest stares about him he calls the heaven above and the earth that he may judge his people gather to me my faithful who have sealed my covenant with sacrifice let the heavens declare his righteousness for god himself is judge hear o my people and i will speak i will testify against you o israel for i am god your god i will not reprove you for your sacrifices for your burnt offerings are always before me i will take no bull out of your house or key goat out of your folds for all the beasts of the forest are mine the cattle upon a thousand hills i know every bird of the mountains and the insect of the field is mine if i were hungry i would not tell you for the whole world is mine and all that fills it do you think i eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats offer to god a sacrifice of thanksgiving [Music] and fulfill your vows to god's most high call upon me in the day of trouble i will deliver you and you shall honor me whoever offers me the sacrifice of thanksgiving honours me and to those who keep my way will i show the salvation of god so we turn ourselves once again to the book of images images of great glory as we saw yesterday and images also of real danger and horror images drawn mostly from the old testament scriptures but added to by the present situation in which the writer finds himself revelation chapter 6 now i watched when the lamb opened one of the seven seals and i heard one of the four living creatures say with a voice like thunder come and i looked and behold a white horse and its rider had a bow and a crown was given to him and he came out conquering and to conquer when he opened the second seal i heard the second living creature say come and out came another horse bright red its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth so that people should slay one another and he was given a great sword when he opened the third seal i heard the third living creature say come and i looked and behold a black horse its rider had a pair of scales in his hand and i heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures saying a quart of wheat for a denarius and three quarts of barley for a denarius and do not harm the oil and the wine and when the lamb opened the fourth seal i heard the voice of the fourth living creature say come and i looked and behold a pale horse and its rider's name was death and hades followed him and they were given authority over a quarter of the earth to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth and when the lamb opened the fifth seal i saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of god and for the witness they had borne they cried out with a loud voice o sovereign lord holy and true how long before you will judge and defend our blood on those who dwell on the earth but they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers and sisters should be complete who were to be killed as they themselves had been and when the lamb opened the sixth seal i looked and behold there was a great earthquake and the sun became black as sackcloth the full moon became like blood the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale the sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up and every mountain and island was removed from its place then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful and everyone slave and free hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains calling to the mountains and rocks fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne and from the roth of the lamb for the great day of their roth has come and who can stand a terrifying picture or series of pictures all taking their foundation from prophecies in the old testament what we call apocalyptic writings like the book of daniel the horses reflecting those that we find in the book of zechariah all those things in the vision of this person in exile john who is writing down the vision against a back cloth of his experiences let's think that this book probably was written in about 95 the year 95-ish and the last 35 years had been a time of disruption terror horrible uncertainty and fearfulness in ad62 on the eastern boundaries of the roman empire which had given stability for paul's missionary journeys the roman armies were defeated quite conclusively by armies of parthian with mounted bowmen on horses and that was really scary for those who trusted in the imperial power to keep the peace but then in 1864 we have the fire of rome when the city of rome burned and the emperor nero blamed this on christians and persecutions began and horrible tortures were invented in wild beasts used to slay people in stadia from 1866 to 70 the jewish war began between the romans and the the jewish uh um sage in in jerusalem and during that war again there was terrible bloodshed until at the end the whole of jerusalem lay in flaming ruins and people were slain and taken away to exile and slavery in ad68 the emperor nero the absolute demon in this this book is uh a committed suicide and what followed was political chaos with four different claimants to the imperial throne there was no stability there was a sound of tramping armies as one claimant after another fought against each other and then in 1879 vesuvius erupted smothering the luxurious resorts of the bay of naples and then creating a cloud across the sky of gloom so that the sun was hidden and darkness obliterated so much as we read from pliny's writings and his uncle of course died in that particular eruption the roman historians have told us all these things and we read in tacitus and pliny and all sorts of others what the scene was like and here is the backloss which john in his visions is giving us and in which the good news of the gospel has to be proclaimed the scene changes and he sees the people who have died for their faith and we're looking way way back how often does the psalmist say how long o lord how long before this is over and the answer here is wait a little while longer with patients but this is the scene of human history and the role although it sounds as if a definite number is involved the role becomes numberless and we shall find that people from every nation and tribe and because the lamb is offering mercy through the cross and satan's lie is that there is only wrath and those who are great begin to fear that roth but the arms of the cross through which the lamb has won the victory are held out as an offer of mercy even though the language is one of judgment well we think of all that this morning and we think also as we have remembrance in our mind of the way in which let's just think first of all about the second world war the way in which cities burned the site of cities burning across europe and the site of cities burning across the world as bombs rained down on civilian populations and i have memories of my own parents descriptions of looking out of the windows of the house which looked to the west where miles away the city of bristol was just a glow a flickering glow in the night sky as it blazed the same thing would have happened here in canterbury and i remember our late lord lieutenant alan willett saying how as a boy he was awakened in the farmhouse some miles from here where he was staying with his grandparents and his grandfather woke him and said put your dressing gown come and see and he stood at the back door of the farmhouse and again a flickering glow on the horizon this is in 1942 and his grandfather said that is the last you will see of the city of canterbury and its great cathedral and the next morning grandfather harnessed the horse to the cart and drove the boy into the city and there amidst the smoking ruins as they came into the city stood the cathedral which had been spared by the activity of those on the roof throwing off the incendiary bombs as high explosive bombs destroyed the library attached to the cathedral destroyed the cannons houses on the south side of the precincts but in the midst of it all still stood the cathedral and we give great thanks for that but at the same time we remember all those who died that night and also the courage of those who were called up to the home guard we tend to think of the home guard as dad's army and uh one way of dealing with the the kind of horror going on was to to make light of it and and encourage each other and so when that series started it was a a really popular series dan's army with captain mannering and all that all the gang but in reality those folks from warming to non-sea an imaginary place but one thinks of birchington on sea quite near here those folks were facing a real threat and saving people again with air raid precaution people and those who were acting as nurses and rescue and all the other people who had seen the soldiers march away they were an activity across the world separated from their homes and sending back wonderful letters of love to their homes and receiving them but there was also as we shall think of tomorrow much grief at this time and much loss of life we thought yesterday of how many civilians and how many soldiers were killed and how many lost their lives in concentration camps and most of our revelation reading until we get to the earthquake itself is all about suffering caused by human activity the horsemen of the apocalypse war and pestilence and famine and even the slaying of people with horrible tortures with the wild beast all human activity against the will of the one seated on the throne who still extends his arms in mercy i remember my parents loving the old hymns and mother singing him we don't sing much anymore but i have another memory of it the hymn was beneath the cross of jesus my fain would take my stand the shadow of a mighty rock within a weary land a home within the wilderness a rest upon the way from the burning of the noon tied heat and the burden of the day i remember waking up in the guest house at zanzibar which is next to zanzibar cathedral and i was to preach in the cathedral that morning it was a sunday morning and i was awakened by a hymn being sung in swahili by the congregation at the earliest service and it was that one and the tune was the same that i'd heard my parents sing and zanzibar cathedral is a place where the altar is built over the slaves whipping post because the whole cathedral is in what was the slave market which was liberated by the activity of those uh who came with the british navy not much more was done at that time and it was dr livingstone who asked people to go out and help with that situation because those who were there who'd been liberated had come from tanganyika over the over the water in the african mainland and they had to be helped to find home again but the sound of that hymn suddenly brought me back to home but at the same time preaching in that place where the blood of so many had run around that location of the altar in horrible circumstances was a thing i shall never really forget and we will all have completely different memories of conflict and wars but the sight of blazing cities throughout the world tell us that there is no security other than eternal security which is offered as the gospel says by the cross and what is being offered is mercy and that then transforms itself to love the lamb who was slain has given his life for all and the lamb is not a not a creature that we need fear it's a creature of gentleness and also a creature symbolizing both the silence of christ when he was judged but the willing offering for which the right response as our psalmist tells us is thanksgiving a sacrifice of thanksgiving today we remember all those fighting this pandemic we give thanks for the fact that a vaccine seems much more hopeful on this morning we pray for one another throughout the world and all the various dangers that people will face today as we say our prayers together we've put one or two links on below of verses written by people in conflict and there's a very moving poem by one who served as a nurse at that time she was too shy to share the poem until she showed it to her friend as a slip in the bible that she'd put in that and the friend asked if that prayer and another poem that she'd written might be printed out so it's handed on to us today let's give thanks for all of that and for the courage of people who still hold up the sign of the cross as a sign of mercy and a sign of love and a sign of willing self-giving in a sacrifice of thanksgiving we pray today in the anglican communion for the diocese of ramonge in burundi and for bishop pedukali and his people there and the diocese on the coast in nigeria and for the bishop uno lua ogunele and his people and the diocese of cuoi in nigeria and paul zamani the bishop there and his people here in this diocese as we pray for justin our archbishop and for rose bishop of dover tim bishop at lambeth we pray for the united y benefits that includes the parishes of y hinks hill brook borton aleph eastwell hastingly elmstead wolfson and pattam and i'm bound to say that in why a former should we say dweller in this house who's a welcome visitor here always wendy white thompson who is the widow of my predecessor that too uh who is full of energy still we give thanks for her life in why and also for her memories of this particular place during her time here we pray also of course for the parish priests there ravi holy and the clergy who helped linda cross and lorraine lawrence on this particular day so let's say the prayer for today almighty father whose will is to restore all things in your beloved son the king of all govern the hearts and minds of those in authority and bring the families of the nations divided and torn apart by the ravages of sin to be subject to his just and gentle rule who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever amen so let's join in in our own languages across the world with the prayer our savior taught us saying together 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 silence now for our own memories and our own prayers and those whom we love in our hearts [Music] 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 always amen so monkey you found some food hey [Music] okay should i put this down here for you then you want [Music]