Christian Canberrans, I take as my texts Amos chapter 4, verse 7 and Exodus chapter 9, verses 13-24, where I ask you to notice that our God is a meteorological God. He is a God of weather.

In Exodus we find God smiting Egypt with plagues, and here is one of my favourites of all the plagues (although the plague of frogs is a beauty, too), the hailstorm.

''And the Lord sent thunder and hail, and lightning flashed down to the ground … It was the worst storm in all the land of Egypt since it had become a nation."

Then in Amos we read ''And God said 'And also I have withholden the rain from you … and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city.''

Now, one of the exciting things to emerge from the researches of that diligent historian Ian Warden is that during ''the Battle of the Sites'' (the competition among dozens of places in NSW to become the federal capital) weather plays an important part.

Again and again from 1902 to 1908 parties of federal parliamentarians go out to inspect highly favoured sites and again and again, eerily, supernaturally, they arrive at that place on a day of atrocious weather that sinks the visited place's hopes.

In the summer of 1902, for example, a trainload of senators descends upon highly favoured Albury.

Senator John Neild described it: "With temperature approaching the Black Hole of Calcutta we set out from the Albury railway station and had a warm and dusty time of it … a lively duststorm enhanced the unhappiness of the pilgrims, filling eyes, nose, ears, mouth, hair, and clothing with a surfeit of filth and covering of every object a hundred yards distant with a curtain of yellow dust … Certainly the fates have been unkind to Albury in providing about as disgusting a day for the senatorial inspection as it is in the heart of man to conceive.''

Then in August 1906, 35 federal parliamentarians and members of the Sydney and Melbourne press go, by special train, to the sites at Mahkoolma (near Yass) one day and on to the Canberra site the next.

The much-praised Mahkoolma site had sounded ideal but then, for the umpteenth time during the ''Battle'', God appears to smite a favoured place (favoured by mere man).

The Bulletin reported that ''the party happened into Mahkoolma the morning after the rain … Then the party loaded itself into a horse-drawn carriage and went to inspect the site. Underneath, the mud was fetlock-deep, and the wheels squelched over bogs that shivered and sighed as if they would engulf the whole caravan. The horses handed in their resignations … And over this sodden landscape the party squelched drearily, looking like nothing so much as a forlorn group of Siberian exiles on the march.''

With Mahkoolma's chances sunk (into the mud) the party went on, next day, to the Canberra site. We know now, again thanks to Ian Warden, that shimmeringly cerebral public intellectual and official Living ACT Treasure, that the day of their visit, August 13, 1906, established the Canberra site as the great contender.

Here's what the man from The Argus reported: The 35 members have driven today under a beautiful blue sky and in an exhilarating atmosphere, to the Canberra district … The coaches halted at the foot of Mount Ainslie, and members climbed some distance up its slope. To the southward many miles away stretched the blue masses of the Murrumbidgee Mountains, with great piles of snow whitening their flanks. The members of the party sat upon logs on the hillside and became enthusiastic about the possibilities of the site.''

So here, dearly beloved, we see the Canberra site being blessed (and I use that word advisedly) with brilliant weather when every other site in the tournament is cursed, on its crucial days, with horrid weather. Canberra's great rival in the Battle of the Sites, Dalgety, was afflicted with Siberian weather every time parliamentarians went to see it.

The role of God, a meteorological God, in all of this must be obvious to believers. The God who, in Amos, makes a careful choice of what weather to send to what place, intervened again and again to ensure that His chosen site, Canberra, triumphed in the end over all the others.

It is no wonder then that Canberrans, whether or not they are believers, sense that they are somehow special. They sense that their city is a kind of paradise, and believers, like all of us here in St Martin-in-the-Paddocks this morning, would say that this is because God has seen to it that the city has been built in God's chosen place.

And now, to thank God for choosing Canberra and choosing us to be the ones to live here, let us all sing Hymn 88 Now Thank We All Our God. And as we come to the line congratulating Him for the ''wondrous things'' he hath done let us remember that Canberra is one of those wondrous things.