The Day God Wipes Every Tear

Old John sat on a stony little island called Patmos, with the sea all around him and no boat to carry him home. And there, with the waves knocking at the rocks, God pulled back the curtain and let him see the very end of the story.

He saw a new heaven. He saw a new earth. Everything sad and broken and old had slipped away, the way the dark slips away when the sun climbs up. The wide, cold sea that had kept John from the people he loved was gone. No more shut-out. No more far-apart.

And then John saw a City coming down.

It did not float up and away into the clouds, the way you might think Heaven would. It came down. Down out of the sky. Down toward the earth, and the dust, and the people. Beautiful as a bride dressed for the one she loves, Heaven came down to us.

And a great voice rang out, glad and sure:

Look! Now God will live with his people. He will move right into their neighborhood. He will be their God, close as breath, and they will be his very own.

All this long time, God had been longing for this. Through every year and every tear, this was the day his heart was reaching toward. The day he would not just visit. The day he would stay. And he would not come home missing a single one of his children.

Then the voice told what God himself would do. He would come near. He would kneel down, close enough to touch. And with his own hand he would reach toward each face, every single face, and wipe away every tear.

Have you ever cried so hard your chest ached, and wished, oh, wished the crying would just stop? There are tears like that in every house, and God knows that wish. God knows that grief.

There was a day he stood at the grave of his friend Lazarus, and Jesus, who made the stars, wept. Real tears, down a real face. He has felt the very heavy thing you feel.

And the One who wept that day made a promise he means to keep:

No more dying. No more crying. No more pain. The old things are gone for good.

Then the One on the throne said, "Look. I am making everything new."

He has already begun it. He began it the morning the grave could not hold him. And he is making it new in you, right now, a little at a time. So when the heavy days come, you can hold on to this: the day is surely coming when he kneels to dry the very last tear from your cheek, and then lifts your face and stays. Close as breath, never leaving again. That joy has already started, and it only ever grows.