The Rev. Canon Lewis Long, our own dear Father Long, will have surgery in an hour, at 10:00 AM this morning. This rightly beloved man, a good and faithful priest if ever there were one, lies in grave danger, requiring serious measures. The doctors want to do surgery, desperately need to do surgery to try to repair the damage, but the surgeons fear for his heart.

It took only a brief moment, he tripped on a carpet hem and fell, and broke his shoulder and his hip. He fell, Father fell, while arriving at Diocesan Convention. And now all of this. And who knows what to come in the days ahead.

"Because you have made the Lord your refuge, and the Most High your habitation, there shall no evil happen to you." But evil has happened to Father, who most surely made the Lord his refuge, and the Most High his habitation. And as he would be first and quickest to point out, it has also happened to us, time and again, we who have tried in our own varied ways to make the Lord our refuge, and the Most High our habitation. I need only glance at my congregation to see those who have suffered - been abandoned, hurt, grieved, seen children die and grandchildren miscarried, seen glorious marriages betrayed and well-raised children fall into chaos, seen beloved and devout and attentive husbands or wives laid low, incapacitated. And we know of so much else - lives ruined, servicemen killed, innocent people crushed on highways - people - good, devout, faithful, believing people, all of whom have, in some real and genuine way, made the Lord their refuge, and the Most High their habitation, and so had been Scripturally promised that there "shall no evil to them", or us, or Father Long.

What do we now say to them, and to ourselves, and to our God, and to those who go by wagging their heads, saying: "Where now is their God?"

In this morning's Psalm, now, it seems to me, divinely appointed for us, for just this time, we hear this magnificent and so welcome and wonderful assurance: "Because you have made the Lord your refuge, and the Most High your habitation, there shall no evil happen to you."

One day, a worse, more wicked preacher than me will speak to a better person than anyone of you on this very verse. Satan quotes the Psalm to Jesus - and adds the next verse as well: "Because you have made the Lord your refuge, and the Most High your habitation, there shall no evil happen to you. For he shall give angels charge over you to keep you in your ways, to bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.". Satan then dares Jesus to leap from the top of the Temple to certain death below, trusting in the Psalmist's reassuring truth, the surpassing promise of protection.

It is the Psalmist himself who speaks early on, in this 91st Psalm, who speaks in these verse, declaring that no evil shall happen to the faithful, that angelic ministrations will keep us from so much as dashing our foot against a stone.

Later in the Psalm, the Psalmist lets God speak, and the tone shifts - shifts not just from the third person to the first, grammatically but shifts, theologically and dramatically. Now God himself declares, through the Psalmist, "I am with him in trouble, I will rescue him and bring him to honor and show him my salvation."

Trouble? "With him in trouble?" There is not supposed to be any trouble, if you have made the Lord your refuge and the Most High your habitation. If you have done that, then "shall no evil happen to you". What ... trouble?

All sorts of trouble. And we are all sensible enough to know it, to expect it. Trouble will happen, we know it. What we might still wonder though is, Where then is our God, in this trouble? In our trouble? With us in trouble. That;s where he is. And bringing us to honor and showing us salvation. Not, it turns out, conveniently kicking rocks from before our path.

An old, well-worn, often-asked question, an ancient question, a question our Lord asked "When Jesus was nailed to the cross where was God?" Nailed to the cross, that is where God was. And now, today where is our God, in all of our hurt and sorrow and pain and death, where now is our God?

The unembarassed, unashamed proclamation of the catholic faith in the Incarnation declares that he is in Heaven, high and lifted up, seated upon his throne, seated beside a young man with holes in his hands and side, murdered by the sons of men, next to a Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, the breath of life, groaning with sighs too deep for words.

What answer can we give to those we seek to comfort and console, to strengthen and encourage, what answer do we have for them? And what answer to hold onto, to hang onto, for ourselves? What answer is there? None probably. It is not that there is no answer, just no answer that we have right now, or are likely to have in this mortal life.

We - you, me, Father Long, and all those we have loved and cherished, or still care for today, have met with trouble and suffered evil, And now, since that has happened, know well and firsthand what participation in the Passion of our Lord himself is. People of trouble and hurt and heartache and grief, sadness and injury and accident and death, people like that, people like us, people like Father, know something. Out of that trouble, in that trouble, because of that trouble, we have some knowledge of what St. Paul meant when he spoke of sharing in Christ's suffering and being united with him in his death, so that we might all be united with him in a Resurrection like his.

The wounded, the hurt, the maimed, the sick, the dying, these are precious to the Lord, that same Lord who knew the Devil's sly temptation for what it was - false hope and vain arrogance. He knew, and helps us realize, that angels will keep far any and all hurt from good people, at the snap of our fingers, or that God will never let evil happen or trouble surround those who have made him their habitation and refuge, even his very own Son.

We know that first Lesson this morning well, don't we, maybe even by heart, and we know its truth. We have seen him bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows, we have esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted, a man of sorrows and so acquainted with grief. And our hearts go out to him in love and care and concern, moved, grieved by all his suffering, quietly grateful for his sacrifice, for the passion and death on the Cross for our salvation.

If we, fallible at best, and contemptible at times, approach his scourging and betrayal and devastation and destruction without sadness and sorrow for him, are we not safe in assuming, believing that our God and Savior cares as much, more, for us than we for him, that he feels greater less compassion and heartache for us then we can muster for him in his agony?

Evil has happened to us and to those we love throughout this life, trouble has come near us and upon us, over and over - "come near our dwelling, in our very midst". Where then is our God? Near our dwelling, in our very midst, bruised and afflicted, and acquainted with grief, bearing our grief's and carrying our sorrows.

We have the promise that he participates in suffering. We do not have the presumption that he precludes it. Our early and apparent end may well be like his, suffering evil and trouble. Just so, our final end is determined to be like his as well, when we shall participate in the glory and exaltation that by right are his, and by grace are ours.