The last tear
The actor Nick Nolte is now 74 and not enjoying life. “I cry every day,” he says. “It’s nothing tragic or anything – it’s just life. I cry when I try to get out of bed, because I’m in my 70s and my body hurts like hell. Once my joints are moving, I’m all right, but those are my first tears in the morning.” You and I may not cry every day, and yet there is enough in this world to make the tears flow – the pain and tragedy we personally experience, the suffering and death we see in the world around us and in those we love. But one day, in God’s new world, those tears will cease.
A friend of mine makes artworks of beautiful, coloured glass. One of them is called ‘The Last Tear’, inspired by Revelation 21:3-4: “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live them … He will wipe every tear from their eyes” (NIV). In a plate of swirling blue glass, there lies a single clear teardrop, the last one to be shed in this world. What a beautiful truth: someone, somewhere, some day will shed that last tear and then there will be no more tears. Naturally, it has to be God who does something so big and so good for his people.
And surely we can comfort our fellow-believers with these words, as we face our own pain and suffering and grieve for those who have died: one day we will each shed our last tear, and there will come a day when the last tear of all will be shed among God’s people.