Revelation 21:1-8
A New Heaven and a New Earth
1 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new! ”Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. 8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”
We cannot for prepare ourselves for the death of the ones we love...Death seems to come like a thief in the night and happens quickly...Death is personal and is a sudden sad disruption of emotion, that clings...We are stung with despair and sadness...And the right, the adequate, and the proper words are hard to find to say about to your friends and loved ones...The death of one you love is a most difficult time...Life after a death is out of sync and out of order...
C. S. Lewis had these sad words on Grief from his book A Grief Observed, after he lost his wife...“Did you ever know, dear, how much you took away with you when you left?...You have stripped me even of my past, even of the things we never shared.”...“You can’t see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears...You can’t, in most things, get what you want if you want it too desperately: anyway, you can’t get the best out of it.”...“And grief still feels like fear...Perhaps, more strictly, like suspense...Or like waiting; just hanging about waiting for something to happen...It gives life a permanently provisional feeling...It doesn't seem worth starting anything...I can't settle down...I yawn, fidget, I smoke too much...Up till this I always had too little time...Now there is nothing but time...Almost pure time, empty successiveness.”...“An odd by-product of my loss is that I’m aware of being an embarrassment to everyone I meet...At work, at the club, in the street, I see people, as they approach me, trying to make up their minds whether they’ll ‘say something about it’ or not...I hate it if they do, and if they don’t...Some funk it altogether....R. has been avoiding me for a week...I like best the well brought-up young men, almost boys, who walk up to me as if I were a dentist, turn very red, get it over, and then edge away to the bar as quickly as they decently can...Perhaps the bereaved ought to be isolated in special settlements like lepers.”...“When you are happy, so happy you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be — or so it feels— welcomed with open arms...But go to Him when your need is desperate when all other help is vain, and what do you find?...A door slammed in your face and a sound of bolting and double-bolting on the inside...After that, silence.”...To some I’m worse than an embarrassment...I am a death’s head...Whenever I meet a happily married pair I can feel them both thinking...‘One or other of us must some day be as he is now.’...At first I was very afraid of going to places where [Helen Joy] and I had been happy—our favourite pub, our favourite wood...But small-plane-big-sky I decided to do it at once like sending a pilot up again as soon as possible after he’s had a crash...Unexpectedly, it makes no difference...Her absence is no more emphatic in those places than anywhere else...It’s not local at all...I suppose that if one were forbidden all salt one wouldn’t notice it much more in any one food than in another...Eating in general would be different, every day, at every meal...It is like that...The act of living is different all through...Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything...
But our Father in Heaven will one day will make everything new...We will be His children and He will be our LORD, our Father, our God...He will wipe every tear from our eyes...There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away...