Alfred and Mable were very elderly now, and they sat, side by side, in their chairs, holding hands, in the lounge at Sunnyside Home for the Clinically Old.

As they sat, Alfred reflected back over their lives together.

Mable he said, we've know each other a long, long time. Over 80 years. And you have always been by my side. When I was a little boy, and I'd fall over and graze my knee, you were there beside me, every step of the way. And when I was in school, and being bullied by the bigger boys, you were there as well, beside me every step of the way.

Yes Alfred, said Mable, I was there with you, all those years ago.

And Mable, said Alfred, thoughfully. When I got my first job, and then got fired for conduct unbecoming, you stood by me, and you were there every step of the way.

Yes said Mable, you were a silly young man in those days, but I was there right enough.

And when I was older, reminisced Alfred, and I got called up and went off to war, you wrote me every day. And when I got shot, and spent all those months in hospital, you were there by my side, every step of the way.

Mable nodded gently, remembering.

And later, when we had all that trouble with our son, you recall everything I went through with him, you were there beside me, every step of the way.

And through all my illnesses these past years. When I lost me leg. And my eye. And both my ears in that freak accident with the blender. You were there every time. Right beside me, every step of the way.

Aye said Mable, that I was.

And now today, here in this home, with little to look forward to but the next helping of processed food, and maybe the bingo on a Wednesday if I can stay awake, here you are, beside me, every step of the way.

Yes, here you are beside me again. And Mable

Yes Alfred

I can't help thinking, what with all these tragedies – you must be some sort of jinx! I want a divorce quick, before I pop me clogs!

Meanwhile the writer to the Hebrews is, as the name suggests, writing to a group of Jewish Christians who are starting to flag a little, starting to lose some of the initial spark and romance of their faith. Some of them are getting the 7 year inch so to speak. A divorce appears imminent. Where has God been, where is God now in the experiences of this community.

In response, the writer talks of the faithfulness of the saints of the OT in a long passage – the rest of which is appointed for next week. He goes through a number of well known and lesser known figures, always introduced by the words 'in faith'. It is 'in faith' that Abraham and Sarah find God it is in faith that Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David and Samuel respond to him. On the surface it is a litany of those who are faithful to God, but is really a litany of God's faithfulness to his people and his constant presence even where and when they, and we, do not see him easily – remember that Sarah laughed at God, quite understandably, and yet, in faith discovered his faithfulness to her.

Looking back and finding that God has been there, every step of the way, even in the difficult times, is of course the theme of the Footprints poem that many people find very meaningful. Personally I prefer the irony of the old Jewish joke which parallels the one I started with. I would wouldn't I.

This one tells of a Rabbi, questioning God and asking him, Lord, when we were slaves in Egypt, were we your chosen people, and God answers him and says “Yes my Son you were.” And the Rabbit asks – well, when we are in exile in Babylon, were we your chosen people? And the Lord answers Yes, you are always my chosen people. So what about when we were slaves of the Greeks or the Romans. Yes my son, always my chosen people.

And through the middle ages, when we lived in ghettos and feared pogroms – Yes you are always my chosen people.

And the holocaust, were we your people then? Yes my son, always my chosen.

Well, says the Rabbi, would you mind choosing someone else for a bit.

It is a centuries old question – where you there, every step of the way?

And it is is a theme explored by an article in the Guardian this week, which covers an exhibition of photographs at Friends House in London, the centre and headquarters of the Quaker movement. It recalls the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings which took place 65 years ago this weekend, Hiroshima yesterday and Nagasaki this Monday. The photographs are of items recovered from the blast centres – and some how, there is something maybe even more chilling in the images of twisted plates and melted glass bottles that captures the ferocity of the forces that were unleashed that day.

You may know that the Nagasaki bomb was dropped almost exactly on top of the Cathedral in that city, and a few of the items recorded in that exhibition were recovered from its ruins.

Among them was this crucifix.

And at the end of the article – in gently theological commentary in that typically quiet Quaker way, the author says,

There are specifically Christian objects, too, from Nagasaki, unearthed from the rubble of Urakami Cathedral, a rosary, a melted crucifix. And there are photographs of the cathedral itself, which had been built only 20 years before, following the lifting of Japan's long ban on Christianity. In one, statues of the Virgin Mary and St John still stand in their usual positions, as at the foot of a crucifix, but in the gap where the crucifix should be, there is just the rubble of the city.

"Where was God", we continue to ask, in face of natural disaster and human evil. "Here", is the reply.

This is perhaps the ultimate symbol of what faithfulness, of being 'in faith' with God and with each other, means. It means being present in the places of pain and well as in the good times. It means in fact, being there, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health. As I remind the couples who have come here to be married these past weeks and as we celebrate today, the love we recognise in marriage is the love of God, captured and reflected back to us. A love that is with us, every step of the way. Amen.