Faith, How Deep? How Strong?                   By Rod Weakley
	They always say to warm the crowd up with a good joke. Sooo....Two archeologist are digging in the mountains around the cradle of civilzation. They find the perfectly preserved bodies of a man and a woman.  The one looks to the other and says "Holy cow that's Adam and Eve!!!"  Now how did he know who they were? Ponder that while I continue.  When Ann first asked me to fill in for her at the pulpit my first question was "So I'll just be reading the sermon that you wrote right?"  Sadly that wasn't to be, I'd have to come up with something.   After the shock had worn off and the fear and dropped to a managable level I started thinking about what to say.   And really the only thing that kept coming to mind was the strength and depth of my grandfather's faith.   How deep is your faith?  Is it superficial like the cloths on your back that you can wear when it suits you?  Or is it a deep down in your soul type of faith?  How strong is your faith?  Is it strong enough to get you through the good times, but disappears  in the bad?  Or perhaps you were like I used to be in the good times with my faith buried down and hidden only to surface and reappear in the bad.      A deep and strong type of faith was brought home to me about 10 years ago when my grandfather who was in his 90's came down with pneumonia on top of having the beginnings of dementia.  I drove up to Kansas City to visit him in the hospital.   When I got there he was pretty out of it.  So I sat with him and held his hand.  He just kept saying "Dear Lord, What am I going to do?"   Just a miniature prayer over and over.  The full meaning of this didn't hit me at the time, but when he passed away a year or so later there was no doubt in my mind where my grandfather was and it was because of that moment in the hospital that I was sure he was in heaven.  Now don't get me wrong he had led a good life, had attended church, and taught sunday school, but it was that moment in the hospital that told me how deep and how strong his faith was that it could surface in the midst of sickness and dementia.  That's the faith I hope for.   Faith so strong and deep down that it will be there for me in unconscious moments.       What does the bible say about strength of faith?  Our Old Testament reading today was from Job.  He had great faith while everything was going good, but what about after his trials and tribulations. That of course is the real story here.  We heard how Job had lost his family, servants, and livestock.  What was Job's response?  Did he blame god?  Did he say why me? No he simply said "I was born with nothing and now I have nothing.  The lord gave and now he has taken away, May his name be praised."  That is certainly a different response then what you'd hear from a lot people in this day and age.   At one point later on in the book of Job, he says it better than I can in response to his wife who is telling him to curse God.  He responded to her by saying, "You are talking nonsense!  When God sends us something good, we welcome it.  How can we complain when he sends us troubles?"      In our brief statement of faith it says "We trust in Jesus Christ! Fully Human, fully God.  Let's think about that for a second.  Fully human, this means Jesus probably had the same fears and doubts that we all have, but then again we aren't asked to step forward for torture and crucifixion either.  How bad was the torture?  Well, It was to be punishment for all of humankind's sins.  Most of us saw a theatrical rendition in Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ".   Was this accurate?  Nobody can know for sure, but it sure gives us an idea of what he had to go through.  How deep and strong did Jesus' faith have to be to volunteer for that?  To freely walk forward into what he knew would be certain death, but only had the faith that he would be resurrected.        All of us have a person in our lives that we can look to for an example like I did with my grandfather.  The bible has many examples of strong faith Abraham and Sarah, Noah, or Moses.  I chose Job as my example because I thought we could relate better to losing family, lively hood, or our health as opposed to going into a strange land to start a new people in your old age, or building a boat and gathering the animals for a great flood, or even being called to lead people out of bondage.  But of course our greatest example is Jesus Christ, because from him the most was asked and he gave the most based on faith. (PAUSE for reflection)   All my life when praying I've always been the sort to just ask god for the strength to handle what ever situation I was in, if I had known that I was going to be asked to give a sermon I think I would have asked for more wisdom. Oh and about Adam and Eve.  They didn'thave any belly buttons.  I'll close today with a poem written by my grandfather years ago.                                                                             Easter Morn                                                               I knelt beside a lovely lake                                                               where the water was so blue                                                               where flowers bloomed abundantly,                                                                the grass was wet with dew                                                                 And as I knelt, my conscience felt                                                                 The beauty of that place                                                                 So I prayed to God in my own way                                                                  to give me power and grace                                                                  The breeze blew gently round about                                                                  No other sound was heard                                                                  Yet as I prayed upon the shore                                                                  Christ spoke to me his word                                                                    Throw off your yoke and follow me                                                                    I clearly heard him say                                                                   What a glorious meeting it will be                                                                    on resurrection day.                                                                                                                         A.S.W.