Revelation is an unveiling, and this passage unveils a person rather than a schedule.
I want to say that at the front, because a great many people were handed this book as a timetable, and a timetable is exactly what Revelation 21:3-5 is not. There is no date in it, no sequence to chart, and nothing here that anybody is meant to match against a newspaper. What there is, is a voice out of heaven saying where God is going to live.
And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.Revelation 21:3, King James Version
God himself shall be with them.
Not a representative. Not an arrangement. Himself, with them, and the word tabernacle is the word for a tent, which is a structure you pitch beside somebody rather than a house you summon them to.
And then verse four, and I want you to read it as slowly as it deserves.
And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.Revelation 21:4, King James Version
Work out how close He has to be
Here is the thing I want you to do with verse four, and it takes about four seconds and it changes the verse.
Work out the distance.
To wipe a tear off somebody's face, you have to be close enough to touch their face. That is arm's length at the very furthest, and in practice it is closer than that. It is the distance a parent is at, or a spouse, or the friend who does not move away.
The verse could have said He will end all sorrow. It says He will wipe the tears off their eyes, which is a description of proximity before it is a description of comfort.
You are not being asked to stop. Revelation 21:4 has God wiping tears rather than forbidding them, and it is the Holy Spirit who keeps that from being read as an instruction to a person who has been crying for a year.
And then notice what the verse implies about the tears themselves.
There are tears there to be wiped. In that scene, at that point, on those faces. The verse does not describe people who arrived dry. It describes God arriving close enough to attend to something that is still on a face.
The ending of crying, in the same verse, comes after the wiping. Not before it, and not instead of it.
You have tears that are attended to rather than tears that had to be finished first. Revelation 21:4 puts the wiping ahead of the ending of the crying in the order of the sentence, and the same Spirit who fixed that order is the reason nobody has to be composed before He comes over.
Now, I want to say something about what has been happening around you, because the need this passage answers is not mainly grief. It is being managed.
People love you and they cannot bear it, so they start steering. They tell you it has been a while. They say things about how they would want you to be happy. Somebody hands you this exact verse, meaning it warmly, and what lands is: there is a day coming when you will stop, so could you make a start.
That is not what the verse says. The verse is not addressed to your crying. It is addressed to God's location.
You have been handed a verse about His nearness and heard it as a comment on your tears. Revelation 21:3 says God himself shall be with them before verse four says anything about eyes, and it is His Spirit who restores that order for somebody who has been hearing it the other way round.
Then verse five, and it is the only sentence in this passage where He speaks in the first person.
And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.Revelation 21:5, King James Version
I make all things new.
Not all new things. All things new, which is a completely different claim: the same things, made new, rather than a replacement set. The former things pass away, and the things themselves are renewed.
And then the odd little instruction: Write: for these words are true and faithful. He stops to tell John to write it down, and gives a reason, and the reason is that somebody was going to doubt it.
You have a sentence that was written down specifically because it would be hard to believe. Revelation 21:5 has God interrupting Himself to say write, and the same Spirit who preserved that interruption is the reason it is on a page in front of you tonight.
So stop trying to finish.
You have been treating the crying as a task with a deadline, and other people's kindness has been supplying the deadline, and this passage does not contain one. What it contains is a location, a hand, and a promise about renewal, in that order.
You are being come near to rather than hurried along, and the tent in Revelation 21:3 is pitched beside people. The written word says the tabernacle of God is with men, and it is the Holy Spirit who is the reason that reaches a room in a house rather than staying a vision on an island.
You have a hand coming to your face and not a rule coming to your grief. Revelation 21:4 describes a wiping, which cannot be done from a distance, and the same Spirit who kept it that physical is the reason this is a nearness and not a management.
And I will not lay one gram on you: fourteen months is not too long and neither is fourteen years. There is nothing anywhere in this passage that puts a clock on anybody. What God attends to Himself, nobody may schedule, and He has never once required a person to be finished crying before He would come and sit down.
Declare this over yourself
- Deadline other people put on my crying, you are not in this passage. Revelation 21:4 describes a hand at arm's length and never once sets a clock, and His Spirit holds that distance over this house. I am not being asked to stop.
- Sense that I am being managed, get out, in the name of Jesus. You have turned every kindness into a schedule, and the written word puts God himself shall be with them in verse three before it says one word about eyes in verse four, which ends you, and his Spirit refuses to let that line be edited out. What God comes near to, nobody has to tidy first.
- Lord, You are the God who said I make all things new and then said write it down because it would be hard to believe, and You are doing that here. Scripture pitches Your tent with people rather than summoning them, and Your Spirit put that word there on purpose. I am putting my hand on my own face, and I am letting You come that close.
Revelation 21:4
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