No More Tears! Revelation 21:1-7

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Epistle, Revelation 21:1-7.

I wonder when the first tears of sorrow were shed. Did Adam cry when he realized that they had just destroyed the perfection of creation with their forbidden snack? Did Eve cry when Adam looked at her, pointed his finger at her with shame, and then looked at God and said, “You gave her to me!” Did they weep together as they left the paradise of Eden behind?

Maybe tears happened the first time when Adam and Eve saw death. When they realized they were naked, they wrapped themselves up in fig leaves while trying to hide from God. It didn’t work, of course. God quickly found them, spoke to them, chastised them, but then promised that He would rescue them with the Seed of Eve who would crush satan’s head. And then, right before He drove them from the Garden, He clothed them with animal skins.

These weren’t picked up at Sakowitz’ Fine Furs on Post Oak in Houston. They were clothed with skins came from an animal. An animal that had been living. An animal that Adam had named. An animal that Adam and Eve enjoyed living with. An animal that God had made to live. God took that animal He made and He killed it and He skinned it and He clothed Adam and Eve with it. And every time Adam and Eve’s skin sensed the animal’s skin, they would have to remember their sins caused that animal’s death. 

The animals died for them. The animals died because of them. I can only imagine the tears that flowed because of that knowledge.

But, most of all, the tears would have started when they realized that their perfect, face-to-face relationship with God was destroyed. No longer would they have the personal, full knowledge of His desires or experience His love and mercy in the same way. Yes, they would still know Him; yes, they would still receive grace and mercy, but the perfect relationship was now broken. The peace that they had with God, the wholeness, was now shattered. 

I admit that I am taking a bit of preacher’s creative license. There is no way to know whether Adam and Eve cried at all, let alone in any of those moments. But I do know that our world has been marked with tears since that day of the fall. Whatever tears they shed, whether in the garden our outside it, our tears mingle with theirs of old. 

It begins with a mother’s tears of pain in childbirth and continues with the tears we experience throughout life. Our eyes have been made wet with tears as our bodies are wracked with pain of skinned knees, and hurt from surgery and diseases that destroy flesh. Tears run down the cheeks as minds become troubled and burdened with the hardships of life. Tears flow as souls struggle with what it is to be a faithful child of God in an unfaithful world. We cry tears of shame and guilt because our consciences are burdened with memories of what we have done and failed to do towards God and neighbor, and we have shed tears because of what others have done to us, both knowingly and accidentally.  Tears flow hot when we see our children hurt and we quietly sob as we watch our parents grow old and frail. And we have wept, knowing that even as baptized children of God, who are saved by grace through faith, we still sin against Him in what we think, say and do. We know the tears of not having the perfect relationship. And, we know the burning tears that come when we experience the sting of death as we stand in front of the grave of a loved one, a family member, a friend. 

And some days, it feels as if the tears will never stop.

That’s why this morning’s Epistle is so important for us, as God’s people, to hear read again and again. 

If there was anyone who could have lost Easter hope, if there was another man who understood tears of pain, it was John. He had heard Jesus’ promise to return; he saw Jesus ascend. He waited faithfully for over forty years for Jesus, but He had not yet returned. Now, John was the last of the Twelve Apostles. All the rest had been martyred. He watched the church of Jerusalem, which began so promisingly on Pentecost, be persecuted and prosecuted and scatter across what is today the Middle East and into Northern Africa and Southern Europe. And while this was happening, he could do nothing except write these young, fleeing Christians because he was exiled away on the island of Patmos, far away from Jerusalem, far away from the rest of the church and God’s people. Cut off and isolated, it would have been easy for John to sit and weep and grieve.

Instead, the Holy Spirit gave John this incredible revelation, this picture of what the resurrection of all flesh will be like. It was for John, yes; but it is for all of us as well, a visible, prophetic picture that the destruction and pain and loss that John was experiencing and that you and I know in life was – quite literally – not the end of the world. 

John saw the new heavens and the new earth, the new Jerusalem, the Church, in all of her glory, standing before the Father, having been redeemed in the blood of Jesus. The picture is one of restoration and re-creation. The revelation grows and swells into a great crescendo as God declares: “Behold, I am making all things new.” Creation will be returned to an even greater glory than was present in Eden. Peace will be restored and the relationship between God and His people will once again be made whole and perfect and He will once again dwell among His people. 

God “will dwell with His people.” Realize the power of that statement. It takes more than the death of an animal for this restoration. This takes the sacrifice of the perfect Lamb of God. This Lamb knows the burn of tears. He dwelled among us and experienced the pain and loss and hurt, even the sting of death of friends and his own death. From Adam and Eve’s forbidden bite all the way to the last sin-marked thoughts you and I have, Jesus dies for them all. From the tears of childbearing to the sting of death that you and I will one day face, Jesus defeats all of sin’s powers over us. With His own grave opened on Easter morning, this will be our Easter morning and we will be raised whole and holy.  

And God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. In the resurrection, sin, death and the grave – all which were defeated at Jesus’ own Good Friday death and Easter resurrection – they will be forever conquered. All of the consequences of the fallen world, which you and I know so well, will be gone. Pain, hurt, agony – all of those things that cause tears - they will all be gone. Death will cease. And without death, the mourning and crying – and the tears – will no longer exist. 

 We get a taste of that today. God does, indeed, dwell among us. In Christ, God tabernacles among us – in Baptismal water and preached Word; in bread and wine Christ’s Body and Blood are present. And you get a foretaste of the feast to come as you eat and drink together, united with brothers and sisters who all sit at the foot of the throne of God and wait for this blessed day to come.

The church calendar says we are still in the days of Easter, but already our day of Easter is five weeks ago. The worldly reminders – the candy, the bunnies, and the eggs – are long gone. Even in the church, it feels like Easter has been put away. The lilies are long gone; the hymns don’t seem as powerful; the cries of “Christ is risen” are silenced. I think we sometimes forget the hope that is ours because of the resurrection. That is why we hold fast to God’s promise, “It is done.” Even though John is seeing what is to come, God declares this to all be complete. This is the power of the promises of God. Even though we are in the not-yet, still waiting for the restoration and the new heaven and the new earth to be revealed for us, we live in the promise of God: “It is done.” 

“It is done.” That’s what Jesus said from the cross, remember? It is finished. Sin, conquered. Death, defeated. Sin, atoned. Heaven, opened. Peace, restored. And you, clothed – not in the skin of an animal, but wrapped in the righteousness of Christ, made white in the blood of the Lamb.