good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this monday the 15th of february no two days could be more different than yesterday and today yesterday was a day of biting east wind and frozen snow right across the garden and the green court everything was covered in snow this morning when early i opened the front door to walk across to matins in the cathedral i realized that a complete change had taken place the weather vanes on belharry tower were showing a southwest wind which had brought in warm rain and nature has got rid of the snow which it would have taken oh a very long time indeed for an army of human beings to clear and the warm rain falls all around us so we've come into the greenhouse here with our friend tiger to say our morning prayers wherever you are in the world please feel welcome bring your own concerns on this day as we say our morning prayers together at the beginning of this week in which lent begins oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise may christ the day star dawn in our hearts and triumph over the shades of night blessed are you creator of all to be praise and glory forever as your dawn renews the face of the earth bringing light and life to all creation may we rejoice in this day you have made and as we wake refreshed from the depths of sleep open our eyes to behold your presence and strengthen our hands to do your will that the world may rejoice and give you praise 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 this morning is psalm 77 for the 15th morning of the month and i'll read some of 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 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 for your way o god is holy who is so great a god is our god you are the god who works 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 oh 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 so we turned this morning to a journey that will take us through lent and through passion tide and right up to the eve of palm sunday we leave as i said yesterday the mark the the mark and story the story is in mark's gospel that we've been telling of the galilean ministry of jesus over the past few weeks and we come into different air rather like the climate outside this morning the heir of the fourth gospel we breathe the air of st john's gospel and we're beginning at chapter three john's gospel is a gospel full of signs and conversations and we begin that this morning now there was a man of the pharisees named nicodemus a ruler of the jews this man came to jesus by night and said to him rabbi we know that you are a teacher come from god for no one can do these signs that you do unless god is with him jesus answered him very truly i say to you unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of god nicodemus said to him but how can a person be born when they are old can they enter a second time into their mother's womb and be born jesus answered very truly i say to you unless one is born of water and the spirit you cannot enter the kingdom of god that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit do not marvel that i said to you you must be born again the wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes so it is with everyone who is born of the spirit said to jesus how can these things be jesus answered him are you the teacher of israel and yet you do not understand these things very truly i say to you we speak of what we know and bear witness to what we have seen but you do not receive our testimony if i have told you earthly things and you do not believe how can you believe if i tell you heavenly things no one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven the son of man and as moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so must the son of man be lifted up that whoever believes in him may have eternal life for god so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life for god did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him whoever believes in him is not condemned but whoever does not believe is condemned already because they have not believed in the name of the only son of god this is the judgment the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil for everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light lest their works should be exposed but whoever does what is true comes to the light so that it may be clearly seen that their works have been carried out by god one of the great conversations in st john's gospel as we shall see it falls the gospel into sections in its major part and we shall go up during our journey together to the end of chapter 12 and we shall find the seven i am sentences and also the conversations which again fall into seven sections [Music] that number of wholeness again of earth united with heaven and it's been truly said that saint john's gospel takes place in two realms the one should we say in figurative language down here earth and earthly the other again in metaphorical language up there the realm of the spiritual of heaven and we see that at once in the conversation with nicodemus which is worth reading again for to hear it read actually at a particular time is to give it not enough justification for meditating on it i've done it quickly this morning read it again and see how it looks for you and how it feels for you and imagine the same questions being asked of you as jesus asked nicodemus so often jesus in this gospel says what used to be translated verily verily i say to you amen amen okay so i am in one of the words very truly words that we use at the end of the our father a word recognizing truth and ascent and so be it and all of those yes it is indeed certain and jesus emphasizes certain sayings with those words amen are men verily verily very truly some translations say truly truly other translations say but the meaning is absolutely clear in every language of that word amen and here we are with this double tear of jesus attempting to lead us into the spiritual realm with eventually the giving of the gift of that spirit and porn nicodemus a statesman and a scholar a faithful person a questor after the truth and jesus talks in terms of darkness and light well we come across one of the puzzles which again will never be really resolved for the kind of quotation marks that are used in our modern language to show that one person is speaking are quite difficult to to find and place in the original greek and so some believe that at verse 15 it's the evangelist who begins to interpret and others keep that as jesus speaking try it both ways because there can be no resolution but those words are absolutely in our hearts god so loved the world that he sent his only son that whoever believes in him shall have eternal life life and light signs of this sort just words not parable stories they tend not to occur in this fourth gospel this gospel which has had so long to develop within the tradition of john and at this time it's a lovely thing to start out on this journey together the other image that's been used is that the fourth gospel the gospel of john is deep enough for an elephant to swim in with ease and at the same time shallow enough for a little child to paddle in well let's give thanks for both of those images as we think today of new beginnings and changes which can happen oh so swiftly let's look at one or two of the dates for the 15th of february and one particularly that i want to dwell on at the end this is international childhood cancer day and yesterday we were thinking of great ormond street and the fact that the children i looked after there i wanted to say yesterday that children's medicine has developed so much in my lifetime but also the way in which children are helped to feel happy and supported when i spent an awful long time in a children's hospital at the age of i think i must have been seven at the time and my mother came every day it was a long journey on the bus for her she was allowed with me half an hour only i took that for granted not knowing what cost that was to her in that long journey each day but now people are allowed to be with the children when it's not getting in the way of the medicine and the treatment involved and the the sense of supportive families around them has changed and one thinks of places of care and wonder where children with cancer and other kinds of debilitating diseases are treated in a happy atmosphere and give thanks for that well today other things have happened in 1942 singapore fell and 80 000 british indian australian troops were given over into a wartime of captivity in the japanese prisoner of war camps we remember all that they suffered and remember once again the pity the horror the damage of war and the beauty of of peace and oftentimes in august as a sign of the ending of that war the japanese ambassador has come here year by year in the middle of august and on several occasions planted beautiful cherry trees as a sign of peace and reconciliation and we're about to do the same with gifts of them from the emperor of japan the guards and the prisoners who used to shake hands when i came here first have now grown too old and gone on but those cherry trees will be a sign of peace and reconciliation 1952 king george vi was laid to rest in st george's windsor iron queen's father and then in 1965 canada officially adopted the maple leaf flag so we pray for that nation today the maple leaf flag adopted following a royal proclamation giving thanks for that nation's identity and our closeness to it and then again we remember these are scattering around that in 399 bc the philosopher socrates was condemned to death for so say corrupting youth with new ideas and impiety in 37 a.d nero was born the emperor who was to be so much uh named as a persecutor of christians and uh his imperial reign is something in the story of the early church but in the year 360 hagia sophia the great cathedral church the great basilica was inaugurated by the emperor constantine in constantinople so we give thanks for the life of that place throughout its history 3 1386 christianity introduced a lithuania scattering around amongst the nations and different cultures and in 1564 galileo born now here's another who having embraced the concept that the earth revolved around the sun and orbited the sun fell foul of the church's conservatism at that time a bit like socrates being condemned to death for new ideas and impiety with the greek gods in 1764 the city of saint louis was founded in the united states i mentioned that because a great friend of ours joel has just got a new job there so we congratulate him on this day and in 1539 the emperor charles the fifth received cardinal poll who was to become archbishop of canterbury under queen mary in the wonderful city of toledo in spain which we so much enjoy going to because it's the great almost the canterbury of spain by that i mean as the here's the mother church of the anglican communion and there are the great churches of the mother city in spain which predated uh madrid as a capital but still retains it it's it's powerful religious aspect and then in 1998 the angel of the north was installed at gateshead the anthony gormley piece of sculpture thou with its wings outstretched but we remember gormley with enormous uh pleasure and and uh affection because of his piece of sculpture in the crypt of the cathedral transport which uh has been uh talked about many times in in our program so yeah you've got a coffee um and the last thing i wanted to mention and this perhaps the the biggest memory of all today and a new beginning again on this day 50 years ago this nation went over to decimal currency i remember that day that monday very well indeed it was a monumental change we had been brought up with pounds shillings and pants 12 pennies to the shilling 20 shillings to the pound and at the same time strange things like half crowns and six body bits which were called a tanner threepenny bits and haifnes and then things like florins which were two shillings and guineas which were one pound and one shilling also awkward seeming now but it was second nature to us and the money we carried in our pockets had all of that written on it and then suddenly everything changed there had been a day or two when the banks were closed the week before and shops were closed for training with the new staff but the shock i remember going into w.h smith's on that first day in oxford and thinking well things can't have changed all that much and sort of feeling the shock when the shop assistant said to me something about new pence two new pence before um we just called them pennies and on the uh uh signs they were lsd with the latin they're libra solidarity dinaris but now they were pounds and pennies in english and soon we began to call them simply 2p 5p it the change happened just like this weather change it took a little while because we were so used to those coins in our pockets but they were replaced by what we know now and suddenly we had pound coins instead of pound notes these changes that come but human life goes on and this huge lockdown has been a vast change in our life and yet our adaptability on this earth and our capacity creatively to think beyond ourselves in mind and spirit in the way that the gospel of saint john and jesus advises nicodemus to do daily is something which only makes us absolutely wonder at the wonder of life and light and truth here are the intentions for today as we say our morning prayers as this first week which will become lent by wednesday begins and we're praying this morning for in the anglican communion the diocese of south and coli in the church of the province of uganda and in our own diocese for justin our archbishop for rose bishop of dover for tim bishop at lambeth and for the ignite deanery communities in the area dinery of ashford and uh the enablers there dawn evans and dawn stamper so bring your own prayers whatever you would like to pray for this morning to this prayer for the sunday next before lent sunday's first two days only of this week almighty father whose son was revealed in majesty before he suffered death upon the cross give us grace to perceive his glory that we may be strengthened to suffer with him and be changed into his likeness from glory to glory who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever are men so we say each in our own language the prayer that our lord 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 justices 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 your own prayers this morning 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 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 you're very active this morning aren't you i'm better off out of the rain you can have a nice dry day