Revelation 21:1-8: a reflection

1I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more. 2I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. 3I heard a loud voice out of heaven saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with people; and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more. The first things have passed away.” 5He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” He said, “Write, for these words of God are faithful and true.” 6He said to me, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give freely to him who is thirsty from the spring of the water of life. 7He who overcomes, I will give him these things. I will be his God, and he will be my son. 8But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

John's vision reaches its climax: a new heaven and a new earth, and the holy city coming down from God like a bride adorned for her husband. And a loud voice announces the heart of it: Behold, the dwelling of God is with men; he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor pain, for the former things have passed away. And the One on the throne says, Behold, I am making all things new.

Notice what God promises. Not to scrap this broken world and start over somewhere else, but to make all things new, to renew and restore, to bring his dwelling down to be with his people, and to end, personally and completely, all the sources of our tears, death, mourning, crying, pain, wiped away by God's own hand. Everything that makes us weep in this life is named here, and named as passing away.

That is the hope toward which the whole story moves, and it is meant to steady us now. Whatever tears you carry today, whatever death or mourning or pain, this is where it is headed if you belong to God: to a world made new, where God dwells with his people and wipes every tear away himself. I am making all things new, he says, and these words are faithful and true. Hold that promise in your grief. The tears are real, and they are not forever. He is making all things new.

Lord, you promise not to scrap this broken world but to make all things new, to dwell with your people, and to wipe every tear away with your own hand, ending death and mourning and pain forever. In my grief today, hold that promise before me: the tears are real, but they are not forever. Thank you that you are making all things new.