good morning and welcome to the deanery garden at canterbury cathedral on this morning of saturday the 10th of december as the third week end of advent begins we've come into the kitchen garden we were on our way to our eventual destination uh in the uh turkey house but we are looking at the most lovely sunrise and a beautiful shot so we thought we'd stay here to begin our prayers and say our sound together before we go on to where we'd intended we were expecting rain today but weather forecasts in this part of england are always capricious and we've got a lovely amount of sunshine and a an interesting uh partly cloudy sky but the sun is at the moment rising onto the garden and here we are with the greenhouses and the box hedges and all the work of the garden around us but it's a saturday morning so everything is tranquil and as we say our prayers bring your own concerns and intentions from right across the world and join in with this act of worship um opening your concerns with the rest of us wherever we are oh lord open our lips and our mouth shall proclaim your praise reveal among us the light of your presence that we may behold your power and glory blessed are you sovereign god of all to you be praise and glory forever in your tender compassion the dawn from on high is breaking upon us to dispel the lingering shadows of night as we look for your coming among us this day 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 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 57 be merciful to me oh god be merciful to me for my soul takes refuge in you in the shadow of your wings will i take refuge until the storm of destruction has passed by i will call upon the most high god the god who fulfills his purpose for me he will send from heaven and save me and rebuke those that would trample upon me god will send forth his love and his faithfulness i lie in the midst of lions people whose teeth are spears and arrows and their tongue a sharp sword be exalted o god above the heavens and your glory over all the earth they have laid a net for my feet my soul is pressed down they have dug a pit before me and will fall into it themselves my heart is ready oh god my heart is ready i will sing and give you praise awake my soul awake harp and liar that i may awaken the dawn i will give you thanks o lord among the peoples i will sing praise to you among the nations for your lovingkindness is as high as the heavens and your faithfulness reaches to the clouds be exalted oh god above the heavens and your glory over all the earth it's a song of praise for the dawn and a marvelous song of praise as things begin to wake up and the wintry sunshine comes across the sky come up tiger here you are here you are and we hear the psalmist's heart strike with music and the early bell from the cathedral beginning its call to the first act of worship for some over in the cathedral itself as we say our prayers here in the garden but the voice of prayer is united wherever we are across the world and at all times and as the psalmist says despite the situation which is described in those first seven verses on go the verses of music and the dawn my heart is ready oh god my heart is ready i will sing and give you praise awake my soul awake harp and liar that i may awaken the dawn the door needs no awakening from me but certainly i myself need to awaken myself as the light dawns and images of creation and redemption and salvation which our lord points to again and again in his parables those images awaken all around us wherever we are sometimes they are images of great tragedy and difficulty and we think of those this morning who are still digging in the ash after the volcanic eruption in indonesia digging to to find the the bodies of those who were dearly loved in this life but at the same time we think of those who are matching the pandemic with their medical skills and really spending their lives to help others and bring them to safety as new restrictions once again begin here in england and in scotland and in wales and in ireland different kinds of restrictions to keep people safe at this time of pandemic and in the midst of all this the awakening of worship in the psalmist music and in the early bell here in the garden as the dawn breaks and pigeons come down to the fountain to drink and breakfast is being had by all creatures here as we go on so let's then move on to our next destination this morning which was our earlier intention and then we can continue that so this is where we intended to come and now the sun has crested the wall and is shining into the turkey house they're still roosting here and turkeys are very quiet birds and so one feels a sense of reflection the moment we step inside as i've said before we're needing at the moment to keep the birds contained because of the avian flu which is broken out and so they have their own form of lockdown but here in this particular place which you will have been used to earlier in the year as the tomato house uh we are giving a home for darcy and lizzie and the four poets and there they are all roosting from last night later on they will come down i'm sure and begin to have breakfast as the sun has now risen but everything that turkeys do is done quietly and as i said as you step in here there is a sense of tranquility which fits in with everything we shall be describing in our reflection later on but for the moment just let's read our little bit of scripture from the epistle to the hebrews i'm reading chapter 9 verses 1 2 14. [Music] now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness for a tent was prepared the first section in which were the lamp stand and the table and the bread of the presence it is called the holy place behind the second curtain was a second section called the most holy place or the holy of holies having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold in which was a golden urn holding the manner and aaron's staff that had budded and the tablets of the covenant above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat of these things we cannot now speak in detail these preparations having thus been made the priests go regularly into the first section performing their ritual duties but into the second only the high priest goes and he but once a year and not without taking blood which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people by this the holy spirit indicates that the way into the holy places is not yet opened as long as the first section is still standing which is symbolic for the present age according to this arrangement gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshipper but deal only with food and drink and various washings regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation but when christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come then through the greater and more perfect tent not made with hands that is not of this creation he entered once for all into the holy places not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood thus securing an eternal redemption for if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh how much more will the blood of christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to god purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living god that's a pattern drawn up for the wilderness experience and the wilderness experience was one of travelling wayfaring in the way that is described so often by the psalmist our forebears were wafer i'm just a wayfarer like as our forebears well all of those kinds of images which the psalmists in different sounds gives us but when moses had come down from the mountain then a holy place was set up and the divisions given to us by the writer to the hebrews not only recognize that traveling tent or tabernacle which was set up wherever they encamped sometimes for years but also what was seen to be in that holy place and see beyond the veil the holy of holies the ark of the covenant overlaid with gold and we learned from the writer of the hebrews that he believed not only the tablets of the ten commandments were in there the tablets of stone but also a golden pot of manna and aaron's rod which had buddied now when the holy city was first captured and then david had the intention to build a temple there in jerusalem and at the same time his son solomon accomplished that then that tabernacle became a solid building a glorious building and in it were established all kinds of customs which developed over the ages for human customs always seem to become more and more complicated the the longer they last and by the time of that period that we were thinking about yesterday when the writer of the hebrews was quoting the prophet jeremiah and i spoke of the way in which the tyrant shall we say nebuchadnezzar with his armies captured the city of jerusalem killing the king's son zedekiah's sons before his very eyes and then putting out those eyes and taking the king bound in fetters to babylon destroying the temple turning it to rubble and carrying all the sacred vessels away into babylon later many of them will be brought back but much much later there was a period of hard exile and the sense in some psalms like 137 of the holy city and the temple lying in ruins but then once again they were in heart and mind and body wayfarers finding their holy places where they could and using the songs of their worship even though they found it difficult as the psalmist says in 137 to sing the lord's song in a strange land that sense of awakening the dawn in worship could happen anywhere and the signs of the creator around could happen anywhere but when any kind of settlement occurs it's good to have reminders of that worship as with the bell calling people to worship here in this tabernacle this tent this canterbury cathedral built over the years and destroyed in its first centuries several times and then added to and added to and many parts of it destroyed again by one incursion after another and attempted destruction but at the same time that sense of entering a holy place was not destroyed for in coming together in prayer just as me entering this quiet and reflective place this morning we have the sense of being able to worship anywhere and as the sun rises then the sense of christ our great high priest who has entered once for all beyond the veil not an earthly veil as there was in the temple which we hear in the narratives of the passion was rent in two from top to bottom as if there was a sign of the old covenant being ended and a new covenant when we may enter in because of christ's own sacrifice into the holy place whenever we choose to offer our parts and minds and our service physically to others we enter in to that holy of holies and the writer to the hebrews is telling that jewish christian community that he's writing to this is a far greater promise than anything that you're looking back to right back into the past is giving you those were promises looking forward those were prophecies as with the prophecy of jeremiah which we read yesterday quoted at length by the writer to the hebrews and as that prophecy went on then those people who had received christ needed to embrace that vocation of being god's holy people with the gifts of the spirit poured out from the holy of holies but an eternal holy of holies a gift for us to claim each morning i myself will awaken the dawn says the psalmist and the psalmist is thinking of the music that not only the voices and instruments of those worshipping can make but also the singing of the heart and the spirit as we begin worship for any day and we've one or two things to think about this morning which will be helpful in this kind of intention ah the pelts are waking up i think they're beginning to be a little bit hungry and coming down here we are say lizzie is looking after her children and darcy a proud parent also but quite gentle despite his size as we've said turkis are intensely gentle birds and they hate conflict so that if there's any uh squabbling amongst the hens and the guinea fowl then a turkey will step in and with these large feet separate them and and give the intention of a peaceful tranquility because you see how carefully they walk and you hear them sometimes uh in in the night when you come out here to lock up when it's dark just quietly making noises to each other giving each other almost confidence uh so it's good to be here with them this morning in this place which for the months of winter will be their home and the posts are here for their very first winter we can watch them grow from time to time there are uh two things that i want to talk about this morning i want to say first of all that this day in 1936 for this nation was the day on which the abdication of king edward viii became effective and his brother who was to be called george vi but until then had used his name albert and his friends called him bertie and had no expectation of ever ascending the throne his brother had been the active one he'd be known as david but had taken the name edward viii and it was thought that here was a new reign beginning as expectation in the older years of george v the father of the the five brothers but one of them uh not so much seen prince john but the the other four very much active in public life and in ceremonial and there is that famous picture of the four of them standing guard as the coffin of their father lay in state in westminster hall but that family had simply expected that the confident eldest brother would take the throne and he had won the hearts of the whole nation he was a dramatic figure and uh knew that he had presence and uh humor and a way of of meeting with people but then on this day december the 11th 1936 all that ended as he abdicated the throne and left it to his brother and his brother tells in his own journal the story of how he went to see their mother queen mary as she was but now king george vista died and so mary was no longer queen instead on this day when the abdication took effect king george and queen elizabeth who was best known to us as queen elizabeth the queen mother but in those days was very much the queen took over and they and their two daughters uh elizabeth and margaret became the royal family with their father as the king all unexpected and their home life in a way completely changed the king always referred to them as us for because that home life was very precious to him we know we know from his diaries we know from listening to him speak with the the stammer which he tried so hard to overcome we know how reserved and shy but how faithful a person he was and certainly uh in my earliest years my mother and father i've said this before were utterly devoted to him because he and the four of them he and the queen and the princesses elizabeth and margaret had actually been a symbol of the home life of the nation which would succeed through those awful years of the second world war when london was being bombed and even buckingham palace was bombed and the queen's reaction was well now we'll be able to look the the people of the east end in the face when we go to see them for we too have been bombed they'd been advised to leave the country but they certainly would not all of those things were still in the future on this day there was a sense of even in the nation could he cope would he cope and how was it going to be and the years proved that that solid home life and that very very definite faith which the king and the queen had and has been handed on to our present queen say that when she gives a christmas broadcast there's no doubt about her firm face and all of these things became the center core of how that new rain would succeed so that as we go on with this reflection let's think how a foundation stone and that's what the tabernacle in the wilderness was which then developed and developed and developed and became so complicated but when then the temple was destroyed nevertheless that that foundation i'm not talking about a physical foundation stone i'm talking about the foundation of the covenant and everything it represented was still there with the people in desperate exile and when they returned and rebuilt the temple it wasn't the physical temple so much as the foundation of the faith and the prophecies which promised that another gift would be given which would mean that they would have the law of the lord written in their hearts and minds and spirits and themselves would become living temples something that the writer to the hebrews so much wants to affect now the church is uh having a good time with tiger's breakfast which i brought in on the tray by mistake but i think that's a nice little treat for them this is home life for darcy and lizzy and the four pelts let me turn now as we think of that very important day for our nation not as an end but as a new beginning which then unfolded and of which many people still have memories today and i'm going now to a completely different person and going to the composer hector berlioz who was born on the 11th of december 1803 he died in 1869 just one year before the franco-prussian war and the defeat of french forces caused the end of the second empire and the emperor napoleon iii and also began a completely different phase in the political life of france but nevertheless he lived through quite a bit 1803 when he was born was in the middle of the napoleonic wars which ended in 1815 he saw one political system with the restoration of the bourbon monarchy destroyed in 1830 as that royal family fled and a new royal family with the orleon family and louis philippe coming to be not king of france but king of the french and at that point too um berlioz was being asked by the french government to write music appropriate for that kind of occasion and he certainly did and that composition of berlioz of being able to compose went right up to 1869. now berlioz is known for enormous choral works enormous symphonies and the more forces he could engage in terms of instrumentalists and instruments and orchestras and and singers the better it went bigger and bigger and bigger and his operas and he wrote really three operas but his offer of the trojans was so big and so long that the opera houses of paris just couldn't cope with it and he found in the end he had to split it into two and even so the opera houses were saying this is too complicated this is too big and then at the same time some of his works when he was asked to um compose became too much for the people and in paris it seems he was never very popular i mean the music never very popular other places he was making a mark but nevertheless his gift was a complicated one so if one one thinks even of the symphonies and we think most of all of symphony fantastique and the damnation of faust we think of his requiem which is massive and then there is one work which paris fell in love with and he called it a trilogy a sacred trilogy many of you will know one particular piece in it and here at a family carol service of the canterbury choral society last night and it was lovely to welcome the citizens of canterbury for that choral society concert which was a lovely concert it was a carol concert in the middle was this little piece of berlioz it comes from his trilogy which is known as l'enfants du christ the childhood of christ but it didn't start as that this is um a piece called we know it best as the words the shepherds farewell and it's a little christmas carol which is sung quite a lot particularly by choirs and it was first performed on the 10th of december 1854 and that would have been the day before uh berlioz's birthday just as a choral piece and then as it seemed to be very popular berlioz he'd taken the the the theme really from the beginning of saint matthew's gospel and he'd written it first the shepherd's fair well as an organ piece then it became a choral piece just three little verses and then he put a narrative on with a tennis solo and at that point that the words became apparent as to where they were this was and it's an interesting thing berlioz himself wrote all the script very different from anything else he wrote and in the script he is actually thinking of the shepherds saying goodbye to the holy family as they leave the shelter of the stable and the manger and everything else and begin their journey to egypt lefuit on egypt that's what he called his first little um trio of of musical pieces it began with an overture then the tenor narrative and then this little carol the shepherds farewell but it was so popular that he thought well i can do more with this and so instead he began to write something which would follow how they were received when they got to egypt now this is very much um old tradition and lots of berlioz's imagination but like wagner he liked it liked writing his own scripts so the next section was called the arrival at saees and at that um you get the sense of the holy family coming into egypt and being rejected as hebrews but then one family an ishmaelite family who's the father of the family is a carpenter and they welcome the holy family and in the uh next little bit of what berlioz wrote in non-foster christ this third part which is as i said the arrival at saees becomes a sense of the holy family being welcomed into a new home for the earliest years of jesus's life and there joseph and the father of the ishmaelite family find common cause as carpenters and begin to work together in wood and there are lovely interview interludes of music quite quiet ones rather like our friends here quite quiet and very unlike berlioz's music there's there's one lovely trio with two flutes and a harp and in in that there's a gentleness about the reflection but still it wasn't enough it had begun with the flight into egypt yes that had got a narrative but why was this happening so bernie is finally wrote part one it's all going back to front and inside out from that one foundation stone of the organ piece which became the shepherd's farewell and part one is dramatic and the character of king herod is introduced a base singer still there's a narrative it begins with a narrative the tenor narrator goes all the way through from time to time to explain what's happening but herod the bass who sings a big aria is having terrifying dreams and there you get uh references from berlioz's other work but much more quietly done uh of and you think of of mephistopheles in his damnation of faust and it's that kind of atmosphere that's there but at the same time herod calls his own soothsayers to say i've had a dream and the dream is of a child who's going to oust me from my throne and take over tell me is this true and the sooth says then begin to do that chance and everything else and they say yes it is true it is true and at that point herod decides that the infants of bethlehem must be slaughtered the magi don't appear in any particular way because this doesn't fit berlioz's plan but we've now got three sections part one headed stream and that contains various pieces with the tenor narrative and the base solo and some nice orchestral pieces and coral work throughout part two the flight into egypt part three the arrival in egypt is and the welcome of the ishmaelite carpenter and his family it is the most beautiful meditation and quite quite unlike anything that barrios writes in other places and we give thanks for that but people said things to berlioz as well said this is this is lovely we like this paris fell in love with it and and since then it's been recorded and done in so many different ways and the music is very beautiful but very very different based on that reflective foundation stone of the shepherd's farewell a human and intimate moment quietly done and also of the ishmaelite father the carpenter at the end who gave a welcome into their own home with their own family and you see the holy family with mary now feeling tranquil there are beautiful interludes even on the flight into egypt with mary sleeping under a tree as joseph washes over her and these kind of reflections help our christmas reflections but when um berlioz was challenged they said this is quite different we like this work and he wrote in his journal on this translation in that work the one we're talking about many people imagined they could detect a radical change in my style and manner this opinion is entirely without foundation the subject naturally lent itself to a gentle simple style of music and for that reason alone was more in accordance with their taste and intelligence time would probably have developed these qualities but i should have written long foster creased in the same manner 20 years ago and berlioz is ruminating on whether his style would have been different if he'd done all that at an earlier stage in his life nevertheless here his gift to us based on the shepherds farewell but also based on the home life of the holy family as he imagines it and gives it beautiful music a good place to reflect on this with the quietness of these huge birds but oh so gentle and you see how darcy is just going around quite quietly here and adding to the sense of reflection here and lizzy too with her family here amongst the straw but protected through the winter months we'll revisit them but we'll also very much over the next few weeks revisit the christmas carols and the scene which was uh shown not just this morning but last night when the children and the choir sang berlioz shepherd's farewell the foundation stone of so much more in his lovely sacred trilogy decreased let's then say our prayers on this particular morning and we are praying in the anglican communion on this 11th of december for the missionary diocese of egesha north in the ibadan province of the church of nigeria and here in this diocese we're praying for the parish of walmar and cornyld and we pray for seth cooper and carolyn wood in their ministry there with stephen o'connor the assistant and the non-stipendary minister john wynn in that ministry we're also to pray for the schools there that the downs church of england primary school and kingston and ringworld church of england primary school it's a lovely area on the coast here so let's say our prayers on this eve of the third sunday of advent but we are still using the collect for this week the second sunday of advent so bring your prayers as we pray here for archbishop justin and bishop rose of dover and also bishop emma at lambeth here's the colleague for this week oh lord raise up we pray your power and come among us and with great might succour us that whereas through our sins and wickedness we are grievously hindered in running the race that is set before us your bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us through jesus christ your son our lord to whom with you and the holy spirit be honor and glory now and forever amen and the advent collect which we say every day almighty god give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and to put on the armor of light now in the time of this mortal life in which your son jesus christ came to us in great humility that on the last day when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead we may rise to the life immortal through him who is alive and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit one god now and forever are men so each in our own language 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 justices as we forgive those who trespass against 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 reflection now on this eve of the third sunday of advent uh so christ the son of righteousness shine upon you scatter the darkness from before your past and make you ready to meet him when he comes in glory 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 think this shows us that sometimes simple is best and over complication sometimes hides the golden thread of the creative inspiration which a person in their life or in their artistic ability feels and certainly the core of something where the seed sprouts is always the center of things and one can go back to that when other things begin to break down that would be our holy of holies and it's a gift of the holy spirit through christ's own sacrifice so we thank this little family who like the ishmaelite family of carpenters have received us this morning and you're a very quiet family to be with and we're glad to see the popes growing up now and getting their own characters bit by bit aren't we i'm sure you're very proud of them darcy aren't you and lizzy so you