This past week in our Sunday School class, I taught through the chapter in Holy Vocabulary regarding eternity, and we entered a discussion of heaven. During that time, we read one of the classic “heaven” passages from Revelation 21. John’s mind was blown as he recorded this stage of his vision:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea existed no longer. I also saw the Holy City, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.

Then I heard a loud voice from the throne:

“Look! God’s dwelling is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes…”

There is so much we could say about these few verses – that heaven came down to earth. That God’s desire of unbroken fellowship is fulfilled. But there’s something else regarding the tears of humanity that’s very, very compelling.

I read the word “wipe” (or in some translations, “blot”) and I think of what I do with my 3-year-old daughter. She gets hurt, she comes to me with her lip sticking out, and I gently reach out and hold her close and then very tenderly wipe away her tears. I dab at them, ever so softly, until they disappear and leave only a trace of what they once were.

Nice picture. That’s not what God will do.

The word here that’s translated “wipe” does not involve some kind of divine Kleenex. There is a fierceness to it. Indeed, it might also be translated “smear out” or even “obliterate.” How about that?

Here is our God, another picture of His determined and relentless mission to bring the great joy of His own presence to His creation. And when He finds us here, with tear-stained faces, He brings a fierceness with Him. He obliterates the tears. Much like a new police chief might promise to “wipe out” crime in a city, so does God at the end of time wipe out tears and anything that might threaten to bring them on.

He will destroy tears with His presence. He will annihilate sadness and mourning and pain because of His intimacy. He will force them out with the shining light of His face the way darkness is chased from a room with a 100 watt halogen bulb. Tears are gone because there is no room for them in the fullness of joy that comes with unbroken fellowship with God.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.