good morning and welcome to the dinery garden on this lovely morning wednesday morning the 6th of may we've come to say our prayers in this easter season as it continues and wherever you are in the world feel welcome here to the community of canterbury cathedral oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise in your resurrection o christ let heaven and earth rejoice alleluia 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 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 the first psalm of this sixth morning of the month is psalm 30 and we read that now i will exalt you o lord because you have raised me up and have not let my foes triumph over me o lord my god i cried out to you and you have healed me you brought me up o lord from the dead you restored me to life from among those that go down to the pit sing to the lord you servants of his give thanks to his holy name for his wrath endures but the twinkling of an eye his favor for a lifetime heaviness may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning in my prosperity i said i shall never be moved you lord of your goodness have made my hill so strong and then you hid your face from me and i was utterly dismayed to you o lord i cried to the lord i made my supplication what prophet is there in my blood if i go down to the pit will the dust praise you or declare your faithfulness hear o lord and have mercy upon me o lord be my helper you have turned my mourning into dancing you have put off my sackcloth and girded me with gladness therefore my heart sings to you without ceasing o lord my god i will give you thanks for forever i always feel there's no more hopeful verse in all salmady than heaviness may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning we come now to the continuation of our reading of the gospel of saint luke day by day yesterday we heard the advice of john the baptist to various groups of the community when they came to him saying how must we behave to prepare the people for the one who is coming and john gave them very definite advice now we continue at verse 15 of chapter three as the people were filled with expectation and all were questioning in their hearts concerning john the baptist whether he might be the christ john answered them all saying i baptize you with water but he who is mightier than i is coming the strap of whose sandals i am not worthy to untie he will baptize you with the holy spirit and fire his winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire so with many other exhortations john preached good news to the people but headed the tetrarch who had been reproved by john because of his brother's wife herodias for all the evil things that herod had done added this evil thing to them all and locked up john in prison now when all the people were baptized and when jesus also had been baptized and was praying the heavens were opened and the holy spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove and a voice came from heaven you are my beloved son with you i am well pleased jesus when he began his ministry was about 30 years of age being the sun as was supposed of joseph the son of haley the son of matat the son of levi and so the list goes on it's a part of saint luke that we generally don't read for name after name in the ancestry of jesus is listed but luke does things differently he'd come later he was interested in finding out from others exactly what the whole story was and if we read his gospel even the descent of the holy spirit like a dove is done differently after jesus had been baptized when he was praying it sounds as though he was praying in quietness by himself and the descent of the dove of the spirit and the voice from heaven you are my beloved son in whom i am well pleased is a memory a confirmation in the middle of his prayers that this truly is his vocation and the lists which follow well they show that he belonged to a long line of a particular community but once again once again luke does things differently from matthew who is the other one with the genealogy for matthew starts with abraham and builds up the story of a nation until he gets to jesus whereas luke begins with jesus and begins to go all the way back back back back not to abraham abraham is there david is there but all the way back to the root and symbol of humanity itself the son of adam the son of god this genealogy for luke establishes jesus's membership of our humanity and every one of those names distinctive in the cathedral church we have acres of 12th century glass but perhaps one of the most famous parts of that is a long line and we still have over 40 of them long line of ancestors of jesus six of them when the cathedral was being restored in its south transept window went on the longest journey having been here in canterbury since 1189 they went all the way to the getty museum on the pacific coast because they were in store and the curators there wanted to show them off so they had a taste of pacific sunshine and then went to new york and then came back and now they're back in their rightful place our stained glass studio has restored everything beautifully set them in the context of the window that our stonemasons carved all this if you like you can find on our website simply by going to the top of the home page and if you're on the website in a computer click the heritage button and then go to conservation and then stay glass or if you're on your telephone just go to the three horizontal lines on the top right hand corner press that and then do the same click heritage conservation stained glass and you'll see the distinctive nature of every face everyone different of the ancestors it also marks humanity's creativity to each of us god's voice in the spirit says you are my beloved child in you i am well pleased often times and i say this for myself we disappoint with the gifts that god has given us but still undergirding all that is his pleasure in the creation of each of us and that we remember today made a six is an important anniversary it's a strange anniversary but in 1840 the culmination of a plan that a young man had had since he saw his mother scrabbling for money to pay the postman when he was growing up in kidderminster he had a plan that all this was unnecessary we're told also that in those days it was the recipient of the letter who had to pay the postman and if they didn't pay the letter was never delivered and this young man who was called roland hill saw on another occasion a young woman about to receive a letter from her fiance with great joy but she didn't have the money to pay for it he invented the penny black postage stamp where everything went for one penny with the head of the young queen victoria on and all these scrabbling for money and the fact that the lesser was paid for by the sender came into being his creativity formed a way of contact that we've grown used to but now of course we have many other ways of contacting each other the one thing we still can't do in this coronavirus time is physically be together in our groups so the ways of contact letters and stamps and computers and streaming things online are should we say wonderful but second best our hope go back to the psalmist heaviness may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning may that morning comes soon and those stained glass distinctive figures reminding us of our creativity with the morning sun shining through show not only our lords anchoring himself into our humanity but at the same time he's taking on the distinctive nature of a human being each unique and giving god great pleasure in his creation let's say our prayers on this morning and we begin of course by praying for areas of the anglican world today the diocese of mumbai in north india and bishop prakesh patoli and his people and the diocese of yokohama in japan and ignatius osamu erie the bishop there and his people pray for justin archbishop of canterbury for rose bishop of dover tim bishop at lambeth and as we continue to pray for the group of parishes gather together in the area deanery of west bridge here in kent we're asked by that area deanery to pray for all those who work as chaplains formally and informally in schools uniformed organizations residential care communities community clubs businesses health groups prisons police armed services and sport will be a difficult kind of chaplaincy for them at the moment because many of those are essential workers needing care and support and others in sport are finding that what they normally do to give people pleasure is impossible in these times so let's pray for each other and use the collect for this week of easter almighty god whose son jesus christ is the resurrection and the life raise us who trust in him from the death of sin to the life of righteousness that we may seek those things which are above where he reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever are men i'm standing in a part of the garden where you can see many trees behind me is the great ash tree ash is one of those things which is a threatened species at this particular time but it's beginning to come into wonderful leaf and it's a good image of how the root produces great branches which produce smaller branches and then twigs and leaves and flowers and it's a sign of that humanity growing from the root which we have been thinking about as we say our prayers this morning let's say the prayer that our savior taught us to say in whatever language we like to use and in whichever way 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 in silence we make our prayers for those whom we love and those that we would pray for on this day the god of peace who brought again from the dead our lord jesus that great shepherd of the sheep by the blood of the everlasting covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight and the blessing of god almighty the father the son and the holy spirit be among you and remain with you this day and always amen [Music]