good morning and welcome to the deanery garden this morning we've come out on a monday morning to see the spring flowers which are beginning to open all over the garden the leaves themselves on the trees are still being very shy but the daffodils and the mustari the grape hyacinths and the little narcissi and all sorts of the bugloss and violets are all around here and we're enjoying the still air and tiny patches of blue sky in the middle of gray clouds on this morning a monday morning of passion week march the 22nd this morning so wherever you are in the world please feel welcome bring your own concerns and intentions and your prayers for others who you have on your heart this morning as we say our morning prayers for passion tide 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 his 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 as we rejoice in the gift of this new day say may the light of your presence o god set our hearts on fire with love for you now and forever men well it's not only us rejoicing in the gift of this new day we have uh leo at his acrobatics who's very happy to be out here and also we've put a little bowl of robin food farther along the tree as well as some leo breakfast here too but uh the robin is very much the spirit of the garden at the moment the robins flit about claiming their territories and singing to us they've been with us all through the winter as you'll remember from the robin on the snowy branches right back when we had snow but now it's the time for their nesting and establishing their territories there's also some battles going on between two magpies and two jays in the background so you may hear a bit of that our psalm on this morning is the most magnificent psalm it's psalm 107 and i've got time to read it all but we'll read a good part of it i'll start at the beginning and then take up at verse 23 oh give thanks to the lord for he is gracious for his steadfast love endures forever let the redeemed of the lord say this those he redeemed from the hand of the enemy and gathered out of the lands from the east and from the west from the north and from the south some went astray in desert wastes and found no path to a city to dwell in hungry and thirsty their soul was fainting within them so they cried to the lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress he set their feet on the right way till they came to a city to dwell in let them give thanks to the lord for his goodness and the wonders he does for his children for he satisfied the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with good those who go down to the sea in ships and ply their trade in great waters these have seen the works of the lord and his wonders in the deep for at his word the stormy wind arose and lifted up the waves of the sea they were carried up to the heavens and down again to the deep their soul melted away in their pedal they reeled and staggered like a drunkard and were at their wits end then they cried to the lord in their trouble and he brought them out of their distress he made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were calmed then were they glad because they were at rest and he brought them to the haven they desired let them give thanks to the lord for his goodness and the wonders he does for his children let them exalt him in the congregation of the people and praise him in the counsel of the elders the lord turns rivers into wilderness and water springs into thirsty ground a fruitful land he makes a salty waste because of the wickedness of those who dwell there but he makes the wilderness a pool of water and water springs out of a thirsty land and there he settles the hungry and they build a city to dwell in they sow fields and plant vineyards and bring in a fruitful harvest he blesses them so that they multiply greatly he does not let their herds of cattle decrease he pours contempt on princes and makes them wander in trackless wastes they are diminished and brought low through stress of misfortune and sorrow but he raises the poor from their misery and multiplies their families like flocks of sheep the upright will see this and rejoice but all wickedness will shut its mouth for whoever is wise will ponder these things and consider the loving kindness of the lord so we're returning this morning to where we left the gospel of saint john on saturday and i'm in chapter 11 and i'm beginning to read at verse 28. you will remember that jesus has come to bethany where the group of brothers brother and sisters are together and jesus loves lazarus and mary and martha but lazarus has died and mary and martha have come to meet jesus first martha leaving the house because all their friends and relatives and the inhabitants of the village of bethany are grieving and mourning the loss of lazarus and mary martha comes to tell jesus what has happened in detail on the road and you remember they have the conversation and then she is intent now on going to tell her sister mary that the lord has arrived when martha had said this she went and called her sister mary saying in private the teacher is here and is calling for you and when mary had it she rose quickly and went to jesus now jesus had not yet come into the village but was still in the place where martha had met him when the jews who were with her in the house consoling her saw mary rise quickly and go out they followed her supposing that she was going to the tomb to weep there now when mary came to where jesus was and saw him she fell at his feet saying to him lord if you had been here my brother would not have died when jesus saw her weeping and the jews who had come with her also weeping he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled and he said where have you laid him they said to him lord come and see jesus wept so the jews said see how he loved him but some of them said could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man also have kept this man from dying [Music] then jesus deeply moved again came to the tomb it was a cave and a stone lay against it jesus said take away the stone martha the sister of the dead man said to him lord by this time there will be an odor for he has been dead four days jesus said to her did i not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of god so they took away the stone and jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and said father i thank you that you have heard me i knew that you always hear me but i said this on account of the people standing around that they may believe that you sent me and when he had said these things he cried out with a loud voice lazarus come out the man who had died came out his hands and his feet bound with linen cloths and his face wrapped also with a cloth jesus said to them unbind him and let him go we're very near to both heaven and earth in this story which is a prelude to the fulfillment of jesus's own vocation and destiny as the anointed one the christ the emblem of our humanity and the human not only representation but life of god the creator himself whom jesus delights to call father jesus has been away over the other side of the jordan in safety because of not only the threats to his life in violence but also his wrestling with what his vocation might mean and now this is becoming more and more apparent and he is set to embrace it in jerusalem and jerusalem now is very near but bethany which to him and here we have to go to saint luke's gospel for the little scene of mary and their home in bethany bethany is a place that we know jesus loved to go because of the home of lazarus and mary and martha as we said on saturday the evangelists and john expects you to know that there is an assumption that you know certain things when you're reading this gospel and they must have come from the collecting together of the stories which made the other gospels particularly saint mark and luke and as we think of that we remember that jesus himself is having to deal with all kinds of things that people's desire to make him king at the feeding of the five thousand and his resistance and that will become very apparent when we go into this next week in holy week his resistance to that concept which becomes very clear in his conversation with pontius pilate and also what that vocation means in terms of cost to himself we see all the struggle of an ordinary human being poised between life and death if we're at that thin area between heaven and earth we're also at that thin area between birth and death [Music] if you like there are images of binding in cloth at both in order to care for her baby mary the mother of jesus wraps her baby baby in swaddling cloths tightly binding him before placing him in the manger and when we come to the entombment in the sepulcher we will find again there are bands of cloth which have been used also for lazarus and that becomes apparent when the tomb is opened but jesus almost should we say resistant to break into that human sequence does so from love and deep compassion and we've seen that elsewhere in the gospel of saint john at the wedding at cana of galilee when mary says they have no wine left woman what has that to do with me my hour has not yet come but out of compassion those huge amounts of water are enriched to become the wine of celebration but also a sign whine of the cost to jesus of his life blind in that vocation when it's worked out and we've not come to the point yet we read that passage of john 12 as our gospel yesterday at the eucharist but in our reading of saint john's gospel let's go sequentially we've not come to that point yet where jesus says my hour has come it hasn't come in his mind but compassion shown by the tears he weeps at the tomb in the shortest verse of the scriptures jesus wept verse 32 of chapter 11 here and the verse itself is something that really does ring our hearts out because he is going to make an exception here and break into that thin area between life and death and i think that compassion is something of his humanity but it's also something of his divinity for as we know from paul's great passage in 1 corinthians 13 then love itself is absolutely there both on earth and in heaven and bridging the gap of the thin area and so jesus's tears i said verse 32 is verse 35 just two words in the old translation jesus swept and what do they say well some see how he loved him and others well couldn't he have done something about this after all he healed the blind man jesus responds take away the stone and then before anything else happens he does what he did at the feeding of the 5000 when he'd taken the bread into his hands and it was always an instruction in the old missiles to the priest to do the same when taking the bread at the altar to raise the eyes to heaven as a a sign it's a figurative sign of course of a greater dimension enfolding heaven and earth in a quality of compassion and love and the will to create something of the divine he raises his eyes to heaven says a prayer and then he calls lazarus out and as lazarus comes out jesus practical words rather like the raising of jairus's daughter give her something to eat this time unbind him let him go free and within himself another step towards the fulfillment of his own painful destiny has been taken and that will unfold as this chapter continues tomorrow but this morning we give thanks for it and give thanks also for our ability to follow him on the way of the cross in small steps and small realization as we explore the area between body mind and spirit that which is finite that which is imaginative thoughtful rational but able to jump beyond and that which is entirely spiritual given as a precious gift from heaven for this life so that the gifts of the kingdom of heaven which are eternal can speak about eternal life for the moment though lazarus is restored to this life much for the comfort of jesus as we shall see so let's just look to see what else happened on this day as we always do and on march the 22nd in let's deal a little bit chronologically but i've got one date that i want to deal with a bit more um 871 a.d king ethelred whom we spoke of as being king after edward the martyr's death fought his last battle against the danes and lost it in wessex he was the king of wessex but he was assisted by prince alfred and alfred was destined to go on and do the work which ethelred was unable to do and become even a person in our christian calendar in terms not only of his kingship and his faithful christian life but also of his desire for the education and welfare of his people 1774 mary cooper published the first book of english nursery rhymes she collected them from the distant past and put them together their rhymes that so many of us will know and rhymes which have music attached to them but this collecting of things so that people can have them there to refer to began just there and then in 1785 we see the birth in the yorkshire dales of adam sedgwick great british geologist and the founder one of the founders of modern geology exploration in the earth itself and the materials of of creation and the sedgwick club at cambridge is still the oldest student-run geological society in the world set up in honour of sedgwick in 1880 1824 the british parliament purchased 38 paintings to establish a national collection in trafalgar square well that now is the national gallery of course and it's a place that we all delight to go to and so many nations have national galleries which show their art and show their culture and have explanations to show how that goes forwards some of them explanations of sorrow some of explanations of gladness that things go forward in a way which benefits the whole of humanity in 1997 the comet hail bop became clear in the northern hemisphere how well i remember that with a telescope out in the garden at hereford and the countryside around hereford gave a better quality of of skies at night but it was so clear even to the naked eye this comet this visitor from different dimensions there with its tail in the sky and they were told by those who know the astronomers said it will next visit earth to be visible to the naked eye in the year 4397 when i shall be sitting here at that point but others will see it and then we remember with sadness on this day in 2017 the terrorist incident on westminster bridge where someone attempting an assault on the house of parliament which was actually resisted killed with a knife police constable keith palmer and also four members of the public and injured 50 and that is just really a sign of of so much of that kind of sadness and sorrow of violence across the world but the person i wanted to remember today it's his 73rd birthday and we say happy birthday to him is andrew lloyd webber who uh lord lloyd webber now who's been been here and and enjoyed the hospitality of of canterbury but i i want to say thank you to him for so many things um first of all for the music of his father william lloyd webber i remember in a cantata in the church at home singing the instead of the usual stainless crucifixion or maunders olivet calvary for the the choir we sang lloyd webbers the savior and it was a a lovely thing to sing and took us through the story of jesus but andrew's father was a great musician in his own right and published so much for the benefit of the church instrumental and choral and for the benefit of music generally and also his brother of course julian the great cellist but andrew lloyd webber is best known to us for 21 musicals he's also written a song cycle a latin requiem for his father but let's remember him today but the tunes he's given us if i mentioned just some of the musicals then joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat the multicolored coat which has disappeared from modern translations of our scriptures but it's still there in a modern translation of the septuagint and the early church which is the greek old testament which the early church used and there it's very much the coat of many colors and it's a lovely image and the the the songs from that will um remain with us maybe the song from that i'd want to mention is any dream will do from joseph and the amazing technicolor dreamcoat 1968 that was written and in 1970 jesus christ superstar and that too gets a wonderful song that we tend to know the tune of i don't know how to love him well we can certainly play with those words this morning but these musicals which many of them have run for a decade in in but not only in england but in broadway in all sorts of places and been enjoyed but being put on by schools as well which have enjoyed doing them and one things of evita in 1976 and perhaps from evita the great song don't cry for me argentina and the song the music comes into one's head at once and in 1981 with words from t.s eliot cats which went on to performance came here to canterbury all sorts of of lovely things and probably the song we remember best from that is the song memory and uh then maybe the i could mention so many others like starlight express all sorts of things but um the last one i want to mention and it's the one that is run for longest and longest and has only been interrupted by the fact that uh the fact that um the pandemic has shut theaters and that is phantom of the opera it's a a a musical score that we love to sing around the piano in the in the drawing room and uh things like music of the night and all i ask of you well uh yeah that we could go on and on with with songs like that and we just give thanks for andrew lloyd's weather webber's creative ability his partnership with so many to create words and music beginning with tim rice with with the earliest ones um and going on with others but also taking up words of jesus eliot and and other poets and lyrical things and so we give thanks for that creativity but also as i keep saying the ability of music a simple tune to cause us to remember words easily and to remember words when there are no books that can give all kinds of help to one's prayers and also to one's morale as well so let's give thanks for that ability to create music and to use words this morning so our prayers this morning are for the anglican communion the diocese of the bahamas and the turks and caicos islands and which is in the church of the province of the west indies pray for the people there and on this 22nd of march the diocese is again asking us to listen and discern on the way and that request comes from steve coney's the mission and growth advisor say we pray for his ministry and those who help him in that but also we pray for justin our archbishop and for rose bishop of dover tim bishop at lambeth and you will have your own prayers for those around you who may lead your communities of faith or inspire you in some way or need your prayers in any kind of sorrow or of sadness i'd want to pray for the citizens of the city of bristol after all the uh violence and unrest uh last night and and the hours of of yesterday and pray for that community there in in settling all of that this morning so fifth sunday of lent passion sunday here's our lovely collect most merciful god who by the death and resurrection of your son jesus christ delivered and saved the world that by faith in him who suffered on the cross we may triumph in the power of his victory through jesus christ our lord amen and we say the prayer our savior taught us in whatever language you 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 brand 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 as we say our own prayers on this monday of passion week christ crucified draw you to himself to find in him a sure ground for faith a firm support for hope and the assurance of sins forgiven 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 are men i'm about to say i i doubt we'll get through this day without uh singing some of lloyd webber's songs around the piano in the drawing room today because we love to sing them and i hope there's some music in your day too [Music]