Some weeks we are more reminded than others that our world is broken and in need of repair. Last week was one of those weeks for me. There is a crass expression which refers to a person who has overly indulged in alcohol, one will say, "That guy has had one too many." Well, last week was one of those "one too many weeks for me". Now for me it was not one too many ingestions of alcohol, but one too many exposures to brokenness-one too many reminders that the whole place needs renewal. Periodically I am pushed to a tipping point that lops me over onto the most influential article I have ever read and lops me onto a verse of my favorite hymn.

In a pastoral journal one of my heroes wrote an article entitled "Get Ready For The River Is Rising". Vernon Grounds penned the article. He kindly indulged Andi and me in friendship as he was serving his last stints on the board at Radio Bible Class and flew in and out of Grand Rapids, Michigan while I was serving a church in Lansing. I met him in 1990 at a conference. One of his former students gave me the article twenty five years ago. It discusses a conversation that the prophet Jeremiah had with God about how tough going being a prophet was in his days. To use the Grounds paraphrase as I remember it, God told Jeremiah, "Jeremiah, get ready. If you think the flowing river is threatening now, get ready for the river is rising." One cryptic metaphor that he used in the article was employed to describe the harrowing predicaments that we get ourselves into while living in a broken world that is waiting for redemption and renewal. He noted that at times we may feel like we are swimming upstream against a raging current with "only one nostril poking up out of the water". Now that is a memorable metaphor, and when you get there, gasping for air while hurting for others who are being broken in half, you come back to the article. By the way, Grounds' point is that our exposure to brokenness can drive us deeply into the character of God and we can know of his sufficiency in a way that we never would have known. I was boring in last week, searching and again finding Him that rock so necessary and faithful.

In 1719 Issac Watts gave us "Joy To The World". Usually it is sung as a Christmas carol marking Jesus Christ's first advent. But, while the joy of Bethlehem is a foretaste of the ultimate joy that will be at Christ's second coming, the song is about the ultimate renewal that Jesus Christ will bring about in the end with the consummation of the ages. Our groans and travails will give way to all things being made new.

I love his verse (especially on broken-laden weeks):

"No more let sins and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make his blessings flow Far as the curse is found, Far as the curse is found, Far as, far as, the curse is found."

Sins and sorrows always grow together. When you are in the ditch pitching, it can seem like you are down late in the innings with the wrong part of the lineup coming up to bat. A buddy's former roommate is suddenly killed just days out in a new gig that he had worked all of his short life of twenty five years to realize. A heart valve signaled that it had to be replaced. Who likes that surgery? A single mom works through the aftermath of her dear son's friend's sudden death...in the 9th grade. That is after a few aftermaths that take your breath as you listen and you ponder together the big questions that can only be swallowed up in Jesus who was a man of sorrows and one acquainted with grief, who bore our sorrows and suffered himself...for us. It was lunch with a sharp friend who is going through what was never anticipated in the demise of a dream and a relationship that is enough to cut a guy in half. A vile wound and some more days in the burn clinic at Ohio State University Hospital. Two discouraged friends who withdraw a bit when the brokenness skirts the perimeter of their lives. They are both in the hole. I love them. I hurt with them. Another buddy is sitting at home not feeling very well and waiting on the Lord...and a liver. My aunt is in hospice. My buddy's strokes have rendered him blind and immobile. Another buddy is walking forward from some of the toughest days of his life. Tuesday I have a memorial service for a friend who loved Jesus and the gospel and frequently encouraged me with his kind words. I am praying for brothers who really want to be employed again...to name a few of last week's samplings...that would be appropriate for me to chronicle. There is also a fill of the the inappropriate to write about.

One either collapses under the cumulative weight of burden, or hope is renewed as you think about how God sent Jesus to restore paradise lost. That is what is coming. The first things will pass away (Revelation 21:4). I love Revelation 21:5, "Behold, I am making all things new." New heavens, new earth, the final great coming attraction.

So time and again I find myself humming that happy song, celebrating joy's coming to the world. In particular the verse celebrating the arrest of sin and its resulting curse, and in its place the outbreak of an outrageous joy that will make all sorrow him seem but a trifle. Joy to the world, the Lord is coming!

"I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us", Romans 8:18. "This hope we have is an anchor to the soul", Hebrews 6:19.

My mother in law does not allow any thievery of the honey baked ham before it is officially served at the appointed hour of the Christmas lunch. My style is to nibble at pieces of that delicacy, well before lunch. I love to rehearse what shall be and enjoy it ahead of time. I love to bring into the present, what I am going to experience more fully in the future. God is better than Helen. He urges us to nibble away and savor ahead of time all that will be ours in that world he is bringing in the renewal of all things. That's hope, importing into the present what will ultimately be realized in the future. Let's have a hopeful month and nibble at what's going to be and taste it ahead of time. Honey baked ham has nothing on our future hope in Jesus Christ. "O taste and see that the Lord is good," Psalm 34:8.

"These are true words of God." Revelation 19:19