Fears, we all have them, most of the time we don't talk about them.  Often we choose not to face a fear and sometimes that strategy doesn't work, but, even when it does, our fear has simply gone underground. It is still there, affecting us through our actions, thoughts, moods or feelings - limiting freedom and choices.

 One of my childhood fears, was noisy machinery in dark places. I used to think ?that is easy to deal with, I will just never let myself be in such a situation' -and that worked for years - but when I lived in a little community in the Canadian Arctic everyone had to have a ?volunteer' job. Since I lived next door to the emergency generators, the administrator asked me to be the person to start up them if necessary, assuring me this was an unlikely event! But one day the power failed and the nursing station had an emergency! With just a flashlight I reluctantly crept into a pitch-black building and, gritting my teeth, started up the generators. For ten long minutes I had to stand in the dark, terrified, assaulted by the roaring of the generators until I could bring one online and the lights finally came on. Pure pride kept me from not running out in terror.

 Most of us long for security. The big question is, ?where can we find it?' In the last few years, a number of events have exposed the insecurity and vulnerability of our lives. Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of 9/11.  But not just 9/11, others things- health care costs, pensions, economic downturns, rising oil prices, bioterrorism scares. When I was studying microbial genetics, I never dreamed that the day would dawn when a member of my congregation would casually ask me over coffee, "What is the diameter, in microns, of an anthrax spore?" swiftly followed by "just how large is a micron anyway?"  More recently Hurricane Katrina, the London underground bombings and scares about people planning to carry liquid explosives onto transatlantic flights have reinforced the uncertainty and insecurity of life.

 Suffering is an authentic part of human experience. We are not to seek it out; it will find us. Terrorism, war, sickness or other suffering, (human induced or not) confront us all at some stage of our life. Human life has always been lived on the edge. We are mistaken if we compare war, terrorist attacks, violence or a terrible hurricanes with "normal life' as if they were different realities. Life has never been normal in the sense of being unrelievedly tranquil, easy and comfortable. Even those periods, which we think as being most tranquil - the 1950's  and early 60's turn out on closer inspection to have been full of crises (Berlin, Korea, Hungary, China, the Cold War, Mac Carthyism, assassinations of JFK. MLK.  Vietnam, Kent State,).

 Events like these cause most of us, consciously or unconsciously, to wonder ?if this is an uncertain world, is there anything that we can we depend upon for security and stability?' So the question of security for us is not one of idle curiosity, but of existential need.

Christians in particular, can and often do, get it wrong when it comes to security and God. In the New Testament, we meet a group called the Sadducees. They were confident that they had God completely taped. They fully understood his promises and commitments to his people. They was nothing more for them to learn- a little dotting of the ?I' s and crossing of the ?T' s. At the beginning of the 19th Century physicists were complaining that all the fundamental discoveries had been made, there was nothing left for them to discover.  Newtonian mechanics reigned supreme, magnetism, electricity, light and heat were all well understood. It was just a matter of a detail here and a detail there! Then, along came quantum theory, the Uncertainty Principle, relativity and string theory- a bizarre, poorly understood world was revealed.

 Before we laugh at the naivety of both Sadducees and 19^th Century physicists, we need to ask about our assumptions regarding security and God. Yes, there is security, sustaining strength and unshakable hope available to us in Christ, but not perhaps in quite the way that many imagine. A naïve, kindergarten faith is appropriate for a child of 5, but is dangerous for an adult. Why? Because at some critical moment it will fail us; and be revealed for what it is - a fantasy, a myth. Many events from 9/ 11 on powerfully demonstrate that evil is real, alive and active-it must be taken seriously. If there is no place in our faith or theology for evil and its apparent triumph, then our faith is defective. Katrina powerfully demonstrated that innocent people can and do suffer and die-even if they are followers of Christ.

 My plea today is that we grow up as Christians; that we allow our faith to be deepened and refined, our thinking renewed as we engage with God not in a superficial feel-good sort of way, but at deeper, more demanding of levels.

 When it became clear that the Roman Empire was about to fall to the Barbarians in the fifth century, many Christians felt betrayed by God; their world was about to be destroyed, along, they assumed, with God's kingdom. Some wondered if their faith in God was worthless or misguided. Augustine in "The City of God", reminded all that the kingdom of God and the kingdoms of this world are neither inextricably related nor the same-that "though the earth be shaken" yet God would still be unmoved and in control.

 There is no final security outside of God.  But God offers us no permanent security in this world. We are mortal. We will die, if not from a terrorist bomb then from cancer, heart attack, accident or old age.

 So what security do we have in Christ? A twofold one. Firstly, the security of a God who cares:  a God who is personally acquainted with suffering in Christ, who assures us of his abiding presence in our pain, fears, hardships and vulnerability. "I will never leave you or forsake you" This is God's commitment to each of us. Suffering may come but God will be there with us. The well known hymn "How Firm A Foundation" has one stanza in which God declares:

The soul that to Jesus hath fled for repose.

I will not, I will not desert to its foes;

That soul, though all hell shall endeavor to shake,

I'll never, no, never, no, never forsake.

Secondly, God offers us participation in the life to come. Not a myth or fairy story but solid, dependable reality.  Because Jesus has overcome death His promise of life beyond the grave is utterly dependable, no if.

 "I am the resurrection and the life.

Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live,

And everyone who lives and believes in me will never die" (John 11:26)

 Conclusion.

Real security is not possible without a mature faith. I want to leave you with an image and a prayer. The image is of a starving child brought in by aid workers to a feeding station. The child tightly holds its arms across its chest, the hands clenched, refusing the offered nourishment. An experienced aid worker says "Oh I know the problem here". She gently yet firmly opens the clenched fists to reveal two tiny, moldy pieces of bread. At all costs the child was going to hang on to them, even when it meant not receiving the life giving nourishment set before it. Sometimes we can hang on to our own pathetic shreds of ?security' and not experience the sustaining strength and security of Christ. Are we clinging to moldy bit of bread this morning?

 Prayer "All my hope on God is founded".

 "Mortal pride and earthly glory,

Sword and crown betray our trust:

Though with care and toil we build them,

Tower and temple fall to dust.

But God's power, hour by hour,

Is my temple and my tower.     Amen.