good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this tuesday of passion week tuesday march the 23rd wherever you are in the world feel welcome i'm sitting on the orchard path here and uh in front of me which we're seeing the is uh the first of our flowering fruit trees it's a cherry plum myrabolum which is uh coming out in the morning sunshine and around me are wonderful spring flowers i'm surrounded with hyacinths giving their scent there's the lavender bushes which are waiting for their spring haircut uh farther away from me but behind me the golden glory of forsythia and i'm sitting under a mulberry tree completely leafless of course yet but threaded through it is a clematis specularis which will blossom before the mulberry tree and give decoration all over the tree with its beautiful blue flowers when it comes that's not far off now and right across the orchard of course there's the golden glory of the daffodils and the white tulips and and flowers around me but every day brings a new surprise and that's the glory of spring here in the northern hemisphere we're enjoying that our prayers are very much with the southern hemisphere with the people suffering terrible floods in australia and we think of them and those who are trying to give them help and rescue and not only them but the the creatures involved in all of this this morning but let's say our prayers and and then continue our reflections and thoughts as we go through 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 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 today our morning psalm for the 23rd morning of the month is psalm 111 i will give thanks to the lord with my whole heart in the company of the faithful and in the congregation the works of the lord are great sought out by all who delight in them his work is full of majesty and honor and his righteousness endures forever he appointed a memorial for his marvelous deeds the lord is gracious and full of compassion he gave food to those who feared him he is ever mindful of his covenant he showed his people the power of his works in giving them the heritage of the nations the works of his hands are truth and justice all his commandments are sure they stand fast forever and ever they are done in truth and equity he sent redemption to his people he commanded his covenant forever holy and awesome is his name the fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom a good understanding have those who live by it his praise endures forever our reading continues the gospel of saint john and we've arrived at the last section of chapter 11 i'm taking up from where we left off yesterday where jesus orders them to allow lazarus who has walked alive from the tomb to be released from the grave clothes with the words unbind him let him go free and here is verse 45 and i'm reading from there to the end of chapter 11 many of the jews therefore who had come with mary and had seen what jesus did believed in him but some of them went to the pharisees and told them what jesus had done so the chief priests and the pharisees gathered the council and said what are we to do for this man performs many signs if we let him go on like this everyone will believe in him and the romans will come and take away both our place and our nation but one of them caiaphas who was high priest that year said to them you know nothing at all nor do you understand that it is better for you that one man should die for the people not that the whole nation should perish he did not say this of his own accord but being high priest that year he prophesied that jesus would die for the nation and not for the nation only but also to gather into one the children of god who are scattered abroad so from that day on they made plans to put jesus to death jesus therefore no longer walked openly among the jews but went from there to the region near the wilderness to a town called ephraim and there he stayed with his disciples now the passover of the jews was at hand and many went up from the country to jerusalem before the passover to purify themselves they were looking for jesus and saying to one another as they stood in the temple what do you think that he will not come to the feast at all now the chief priests and the pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where jesus was they should let them know so that they might arrest him gradually the pieces and the people and the scenario for the last part of the earthly life of jesus are being put in place he has always been conscious deep inside him that all this must happen in the holy city but for the moment he senses still that the hour is not yet and the divisions amongst the people and also the councils of the pharisees and sadducees and the sadducees the group from which the high priestly family were drawn a very unlikely alliance normally those two groups were really opposed to one another both in theology and politics if you like but on this occasion they're united in wanting to put down what they see as a huge danger and that huge danger is jesus himself but the jewish people hang on his words and so they are nervous of taking any kind of action which might precipitate a riot at the time of the feast of the passover which was the most tense and fragile time of year for those who held political and shall we call it ecclesiastical authority the the authority of the jewish faith the high priest and the sadduceean party and they meet in council in the sanhedrin and jesus meanwhile withdraws again to a secret place near to the wilderness as they're once again touching those temptations which we read of in the other gospels right at the beginning of his earthly ministry those temptations which was saying to him if you're the son of god there's no need for all this you have power to do things which any human being wouldn't have that temptation was resisted three times in different ways but he withdraws near to the wilderness for quietness as well with only his disciples who are beginning as we've seen with thomas to be alarmed by the violence which is is beginning to boil up towards jesus but meanwhile back in the parliament in the council in the sanhedrin the high priest caiaphas who in this gospel will play a leading role in the conversations which follows exercises his office of high priest which jesus would respect as an office as he respects the temple as his father's house he prophesies but cannot interpret his own prophecy that is what the evangelist does for him and for us once he's prophesied you know nothing at all says to the parliament it's better that one man should die than the whole nation be destroyed he's thinking that any kind of disorder which they can't control particularly in the temple will call forth the ross of the roman occupying force and of the procurator pontius pilate who has come down to jerusalem as we shall find out later simply to keep his hand and his eye over an explosive time of year in this troublesome province as far as he's concerned and caiaphas therefore as high priest in our minds this scenario now sees two high priests the one who is saying that the blood of the other is worth it for everything to be maintained as it is and the other who [Applause] is knowing deep inside himself high priest that he must give his own life for the sake of the drawing together of the people and not only the people of his own nation but those from throughout the world the hour has not yet come but he needs to be in jerusalem for that hour to come but that's left for the next chapter yet we see during the chapters which follow the development of what they see is the vocation of each high priest and they're very very different jesus himself though has the struggles of his own humanity which we will all have when facing violence and threat to one's own life and the temptations that mean that he could perhaps avoid all this go back to galilee and have an ordinary life teaching and being respected by the people they're still there but he knows deep inside that that is not the way that she has been called to follow and that we must trace day by day as we go forward today this 23rd of march uh there are three anniversaries that i want to mention which help us there are three beginnings just as tomorrow will see the beginning in st john's gospel of jesus placing his feet on the road to jerusalem and the first of these happened in 1743 on this 23rd of march of all places it happened in the theater at covent garden where the first performance of handel's messiah took place in england in london it had been performed first in dublin and the choirs which came together were irish choirs at that time the year before and handel had written this piece very quickly in three weeks it said in 1741 the summer of 1741 he himself knew himself to have been inspired while writing it and we've no idea how long before that his his own uh um thoughts had been on the lyrics the the the way in which charles jennings had put together sentences from the king james version of the bible and the psalms of the book of common prayer which of course are the miles coverdale version of the bible which predates the king james version and handel had written the messiah it was performed in dublin and the irish clergy and among them dean jonathan swift who wrote gulliver's travels said that if irish choirs were being used then all proceeds must go to charity and that began a tradition for performances of the messiah but on this day it was first should we say performed given in london in the presence of king george ii and to a full house at the covent garden theatre and as the oratorio developed all the way through to the end of part two and it's in three parts you remember there's an opening part one following the overture there's a middle part which is the longest and then there's a a third part and the middle part ends with the great chorus of hallelujah and at that point um the king stood up and all the audience stood up with him and it's another tradition attached to messiah over the centuries at this point with the singing of that great cry which we shall use we don't use that word hallelujah in east in uh passion time nor in lent but we're waiting for easter day when all our hymns will be full of those words and the king stood up at that point and then sat for the last section here's my old copy which i received i don't know at the age of 12 i should think of messiah it's in it's in good condition uh there's lost its original cover and my mother covered it for me in brown paper she was always covering books for me so in brown paper and then writing on the front to make sure that i knew it was mine and the glory of all this is to me the list of how the words develop and how cleverly for our sake handle has orchestrated and used the voices through how many times i've sung it i don't know it's countless and many of you will have sung messiah in many places and how many times one has uh heard it sung and that was always a great thrill oddly here is mostly performed at christmas time but it's only part one which deals with the prophecies towards the birth of the messiah and then at the the end of that um we get to the chorus his yoke is easy his burden is light the ministry of jesus it's part two the great part which deals with the passion and deals also at the end with the hallelujahs and then part three opens with that great aria of resurrection i know that my redeemer liveth and ends with the worship of heaven worthy is the lamb and the great amen handel is so good at saving his resources great thing in music if you start playing fortissimo people soon get used to fortissimo and you've nothing left to use handel saves his trumpets until the angels start singing their gloria at the the announcement to the shepherds in part one and he saves his soprano voice till that time as well and he saves the timpani uh coming in with trumpets so that the build-up becomes more and more and more and the voices are used in the best possible way so that these things stay in our head i will remember samarkam sergeant who was a great devotee of the messiah saying in his desert island discs that when they said say which book would you like to take with you and which of the records and he actually said i'd like to take a full orchestral score of messiah so that i could peruse that and delve deeper and deeper into handel's reflections which were done in a such a short time but then creative works often come to fruition like a bud and then burst into flower when the hour has come and that has been a gift to us ever since it's certainly the the best known oratorio in english in the english-speaking world and we glory in its music and the way it interprets not only the prophecies of the old testament and the psalms but also the new testament stories of the birth of jesus but then plums the depths of the passion and the glory first of resurrection and then of resurrection beyond and the glory of heaven and the great amends at the end well as you see i could go on a long time with my brown paper covered messiah here in tatters through use but that's only one of the dates i wanted to mention this morning the second is also a beginning in 1956 on this day in coventry her majesty the queen laid the foundation stone of coventry cathedral as it was to be beside her as she laid that stone were the walls like an empty shell of the cathedral church of saint michael which had been bombed together with the city of coventry in a terrible bombing rage at the beginning of the war it went on all night and was almost a trial of how a city could be blitzed as the bombers went backwards and forwards in a crisscross passage and no one had expected anything like this but the cathedral burned and the next day almost the provost of coventry came into his cathedral and soon after not only was a cross of wood placed there from the charred timbers but also across of the nails which had fallen the medieval nails from the roof was twisted into the shape of a cross and since then has become a sign of reconciliation there is a wonderful black and white pathe newsreel of her majesty the queen on that day tapping with the uh masonic tool the corners of the stone the foundation stone and she says in her young voice i declare this stone well and truly laid there being quite a decision as to whether to rebuild the old cathedral or to use another church like saint mary's at warwick within the diet which was well within the diocese of carpentry and and had cathedral proportions but now in the end the decision was made that after this a new cathedral with all kinds of creative work from masons and artists would be there and we pray this morning for the dean of cavendry and his chapter and the whole diocese of coventry who from the ashes of the old cathedral created not only a new cathedral but a a society of reconciliation the fellowship of the cross of nails to which many belong and it's significant that our own archbishop of canterbury justin wears around his neck as a pectoral cross from his time as one of the cannons of coventry the cross of nails as a sign of reconciliation which leads me on to my third and last date for this morning and that took place in 1966 on this day archbishop michael ramsey went to visit pope paul vi in rome sounds like an ordinary thing to us now it was the first time an archbishop of canterbury had met officially in this way a pope for 400 years and it was a beginning and there was an exchange of gifts and pope paul vi placed an episcopal ring uh in on the archbishop's hand and there was a an embrace but more than that there was a declaration to show how significant this moment was as a beginning after 400 years a beginning of reconciliation a beginning of recognition of the others communion and a very much a beginning of the sense of trying to achieve christ's prayer that all may be one gathering the scattered children of god from throughout the world says the high priest's prophecy that he doesn't know is going to be fulfilled in the most surprising way in our lesson in saint john and no matter that many years have gone by since 1966 march the 23rd that day but still the intention and the prayer which we burn a candle for in unity on thursdays here always in the cathedral that all may be one and that phrase unum sent in latin is scribed on the trophy when the cricket team of canterbury played the pope's cricket team from rome either in rome or here when the cup is presented and i've had two opportunities to do that in canterbury the same thing in rome the cup has on it ut that they may be one it's a prayer for holy week for the sake of our world but reconciliation also came in human terms out of the ashes of coventry cathedral on this day and on this day in 1743 handel's music and jennings selection of the biblical words proclaimed that truth in orchestral and human voices terms and we give thanks for all of that this morning so let's say our prayers as we continue to walk the way of the cross and embrace whatever today and the life around us means for us and those whom we know and love we're thinking this morning in the anglican communion on this 23rd of march of the diocese of bakru and praying for the people there this is in the church of nigeria in the jos province there and praying in our own diocese for archbishop justin for bishop rose of dover for bishop tim at lambeth and for the parishes of the romney and tinterdon area dinnery and we shall begin to pray for those who are working in them and in the people who are living for the people who are living in the the communities of that area deanery as the days go on through this week and next we pray for the assistant area dean at the moment chris hodgkins and the folk of that area deanery bring your own prayers this morning for whomever you would want to pray for and we'll use the collect for this passion week most merciful god who by the death and resurrection of your son jesus christ delivered and saved the world grant 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 so each in our own language we say the prayer our savior taught us 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 as you hear the stream running beside me down through the flowers and moss of the orchard christ crucified draw you to himself to find in him a sure ground of faith a firm support for hope and the assurance of sins forgiven 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 [Music]