Revelation 21:4, ‘And He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and Death will be no more, neither will there be morning, or crying, or pain any more; the former things passed away.’
In the presence of God dwelling with us in Christ every tear is wiped away…mended beyond imagination….comforted beyond all conceiving….healed so deeply and so profoundly as to turn the tears themselves into blessedness (Matt. 5:4)…Healed as the crucifixion is healed by the resurrection, which is to say, not by a mending that undoes or reverses the sorrow, but one that turns the very sorrow into glory, into—not light hearted and flippant, but weighty, poignant, weeping and wondering—Joy.
What confidence do I have to say this? I say it because of the cross itself. The crucifixion of Jesus is the bitter well into which flows every tear of God’s people—the fullness of the weeping of the Bride throughout all of time and space is gathered together and poured out as one in the tears that stream down the face of her God in the Garden and upon the cross. Therefore, the wiping away of those tears IS the wiping away of her tears. And how is the weeping of the Son wiped away? Through the resurrection (Heb.5:7).
The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the wiping away of His tears by the hand of God Himself…and the wiping away of those tears does not nullify the weeping of Calvary…rather, it turns that very weeping into song…Yes, through the healing of the resurrection, the weeping of God becomes the cosmic hymn of disbelieving joy into which all of creation is gathered (Rev.5:9-14)…the singing of the mountains, the dancing of the trees, the rejoicing of the meadows, and the roaring of the seas; the canticle of the stars, and the song of the saints as they rise from their graves, and ring the throne, and fill the cosmos with the knowledge of the glory of God in Christ; this song, this joy, this wonder, this beauty IS the weeping of God—which is the weeping of His people, borne in love—transfigured into Truth by the resurrection of the crucified Jesus; it is the wiping away of the tears of the Beloved Son, which is the wiping away of the tears of His Bride in Him.
