October 12

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.—Revelation 21:4.

TEARS are the visible and affecting expressions of distress; and, therefore, to say there shall be no more tears, is to say that all those causes of sorrow which exist in the present world shall be eternally removed. Hence it is added, "There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying;" because these are the causes which rend the hearts of men, and suffuse their eyes with tears.

1. There shall be no tears of separation. The longest and most painful separations are those which are caused by death; and what eye has not been dimmed with tears by this? He must have been unhappy indeed over whose unmoistened grave no tears are shed, and whose death has occasioned no regrets. But the number of these is few. Death rends all hearts. When Joseph died, the children of Israel wept sore. "My father! my father!" exclaimed Elisha, when Elijah was taken away from him. "O my son Absalom! O Absalom, my son, my son!" said the much-moved David, as he "went up to the chamber over the gate," that he might weep alone. And when his friend Lazarus died, "Jesus wept." Well; be it so. To weep and to be wept is the irreversible decree as to man below; but then, so much the more welcome the state we hope for. A great voice is heard out of heaven, "And there shall be no more death." The sight would be a blot in the tabernacle of God. The rigid limb, the silent pulse, the breathless lip, the pallid cheek, the fixed and darkened eye,—these, these are not scenes for heaven. But this is the decree: "There shall be no more death." This shall restore and perpetuate your friendships, and wipe the tears of separation away for ever.

2. And with the tears of separation pass away all those which pain wrings from the tortured body, or sorrow from the wounded spirit. Martyrs, you have been racked and torn, but there is now no more pain for you; for like your Master, you have exchanged your crown of thorns for a crown of glory. Patient sufferers from disease, you could weep, though you could not murmur; but wearisome nights are no longer appointed you. Nor does the spirit, full charged with its inward griefs, pour the flood into the eyes. No publican here smites on his breast, exclaiming, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" No Peter, the cowardly denier of his Lord, goes out to weep bitterly. No tears of shame and grief are shed over barrenness of spirit, and hardness of heart. Zion no longer cries, "The Lord hath forgotten me." "There shall be neither sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain."

3. And we may add, that there shall not be even tears of joy. For what do they suppose? The joy which finds relief in tears supposes a previous anguish, and that the change from one state to another shakes the feebleness of mortality. Or it supposes that we are so unused to strong emotions, that our measure of joy is soon filled up; that even the bliss of earth may be too copious for the contracted vessel of our hearts, and therefore so easily overflows in tears. But there shall be no such alternations in heaven; nor will the capacity for blessedness be thus limited. Joy will not be so much a stranger that we shall weep at meeting it. It will be a habit, not accident. It will be not the transient flash which dazzles, overpowers, and disappears, but the fixed and steady element in which we shall live for ever.

And the reason for all this is given: "The former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new." How impressive and sublime is the scene thus presented! Under the throne of him who is arrayed in the glory of the Father, lie heaven and earth, the present seat of death, and sorrow, and pain. He speaks, and they vanish, "and the former things are passed away." He speaks again, and a new heaven and earth spring into being. "The tabernacle of God is with men;" and he that sitteth upon the throne saith, "Behold, I make all things new." What a dream will then our earthly sufferings and labors, our joys and our sorrows, appear! They have passed away, and a new world opens to our view to abide for ever.