Corona Chronicles - Crown of Gold

Here we are with the joy of being in Revelation 21 again. And we're just gonna read 2 verses. Today because these are just so precious. So we've seen that there's a bride and a bridegroom and a city and a dwelling place of God like temple of God God is dwelling with his people intimately as husband and wife, and we pick up these verses in verse 4. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

There'll be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain for the old order of things have passed away. My goodness, I mean, Here is a picture of us in the new creation, and it's a picture of a very happy bride. And not sort of surface sentimental happy that you can be at just a nice wedding because it's nice food, and a nice atmosphere, but there's something deeply rotten, taken away, wiped away. So there's a joy in this marriage, isn't it? No.

There is. And and I mean, in 1 sense, how do you add to that? Riddle. I mean, it just feels like we could just read it for 8 minutes, but this I think, you know, when when we suffer personally in this life, and when we ever try to minister to suffering people, I think every Christian reaches for this verse at some point, don't they? And they're like, because this this is such a wonderful promise, and it's so personal.

You know, he will wipe away tears from their eyes, you know. It's like a father, you know, who's nursing a child that's just fallen over or just been bullied and they're crying. You know, they take the thumb, don't they? And they wipe it from the cheek. It's not just stop crying now or you know, I have the power to take your tears away.

You know, they're they're white they're actually wiped off the face in the most intimate way. Yeah. And know, that's because as he says in verse 5, you know, everything is being made new and the old order of things is being is going. So In this life, you know, Paul says, we weep with those who weep, we mourn with those who mourn. This is we are in the old order of things, and there is an appropriate weeping.

In this age. In fact, we commanded to weep in this age. But in the age to come, that that time will have passed. And it will be a time for for tears of joy and rejoicing because the curse has the curse has been lifted finally. Yeah.

And I think I think we just kind of understand how incredibly wonderful this picture of God is. Yeah. As you say. I mean, there aren't gods like this, are there? I mean, most gods are, you know, the myths of gods are a pearly fairly sort of angry or grumpy or selfish or this is a very deeply in love.

God with his people. He he personally wipes away at his. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

So, you know, This is the great thing about Jesus, isn't it? Jesus absolutely knows what we're what we're going through. He understands, here's a God who became man. To understand the depth of our problem. You know, here's here's Jesus that was misunderstood by his family.

He understands people that are misunderstood by the family. Here's Jesus who understood what it was to be betrayed by a best mate. You know, he understands those things. And here, it's put in this sort of beautiful way, as you say, this wiping away the tear from, yeah, from their eyes. And dealing with those things, no more mourning, no more crying, you know, for the old things, no more death.

You know, it's often said that this is the only city with our graveyard. Yeah. So you go around every city in every every part of the world and it'll have a graveyard. Yeah. There's no graveyard here.

No. And And as you say, Jesus knew what this was like. I was just thinking of those as you were talking there, you know, he himself wept, didn't they? You know, he he knew what it was to feel tears on his cheeks, and he has the authority to do this. That's why he's the 1 on the throne, isn't it?

In verse 5. He was seated on the throne. It's saying this because, you know, all of every person, you know, has has longed to have the authority to take away. Sadness in the people they love. You know, when you see someone you love grieving, you you want the power to take it away and to restore happiness to them, but we don't.

And that's 1 of the frustrations of this life, but but Jesus does and he will. And the the liberty here, you know, this sort of passing away of these things. Is going to be. We will never know. We can't know anything like it.

No. Because there's always, in everything we do, even the most wonderful, you know, when we're at our laughing, you know, and are most relaxed if you if you like, and enjoying, and most secure sort of things going on in this life. There's the underlying beat of death and mourning and crying and pain, isn't it? And it's almost you can't hardly do even good things. I mean, I always think about sunbathing.

It's a lovely thing to be on holiday with a book and a drink. Sitting in the sun reading. You can't do it for long without burning up. Yeah. And then you have to go under and put some cream on -- Yeah.

-- hide in the shade and There's always an underlying pain or problem in everything. -- threat of cancer from it and so. And when that's taken away -- Yeah. -- that whole underlying sort of things. The freedom must be massive.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's right. And and it's it's 1 of those things, as you say, which is hard for us to fully grasp what a world without that is gonna look like.

And it's almost as if Jesus anticipates that because he says at the end of verse 5, write this down for these that trustworthiness and true. And so you can imagine Christians thinking, well, I would love that to be the case, but Is that really possible? Is that really gonna happen? You know, or non Christians might look cynically and say, yeah, it's just pie at the sky when you die, isn't it? Yeah.

But but actually Jesus is almost, as I say, anticipated that and said, no, because of the resurrection, you know, this is true. Write it down. At this point, I wanna just underlying. Yeah. What what I've said there is true, you know.

And I'm sure there will be pie. Yeah. Yeah. And I like a pie. So Anyway, we'll come back tomorrow.