Tears Here, Eternal Joys There

Religious News Article for the Frankenmuth News November 2, 2011

By Pastor Mark Loest

16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. 17 For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Revelation 7:16-17 (ESV)

Yesterday, November 1, was All Saints Day for the Christian Church. Our popular culture gets just about everything wrong concerning the state of the souls of the dead and their relationship to the living.

Take the popular Twilight vampire series of books and movies. Not only is Twilight the culmination of recent teen vampire-frenzy, it also feeds the frenzy with its demythologizing of vampires–doing away with all that we previously thought about them, so that the whole genre has gone through a sort of revisionism.

There are no vampires, nor are there ghosts, nor any of the other creatures that roamed about in people’s minds and fantasies Monday night. The dead cannot return. David said of Bathsheba’s dead son whom she bore David as the result of their adulterous, murderous affair. “He will not come to me, but I will go to him.”

The state of the dead in Christ is blessedness in paradise. The living are separated from the dead; the departed may not return. We experience this separation in the grief we feel as we mourn the loss of loved ones in death–even in the death of a loved one who has died in Christ.

John, the exiled apostle, experienced a similar sense of separation from those he loved as he remained banished on the Island of Patmos and could only gaze across the sea towards Ephesus and the congregation he had served. There he received the visions that he was told to write down as the book of Revelation. And that sense of separation comes out in Revelation when he speaks of the “great sea.” Even later, in chapter 21, in his description of heaven he says there will come a time when there will no longer be any separation between God and man. “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.” Revelation 21:1 (ESV)

In the Revelation to John God is in control. Satan has been defeated. The dead await the resurrection. And in the presence of the Lamb, the faithful departed are with the Lord and they know rest. This is how it is for those who have gone before us. And this is how it will be for us, unless we live until judgment day.

Therefore we can already sing in preparation of our future joining with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” Revelation 5:12 (ESV) Amen.