Revelation 21: God Will Wipe Away Every Tear

Introduction

"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes." With this promise from Revelation 21, the pastor of the Primera Iglesia Evangélica Bautista de Madrid (PIEB Lacy) titles his reflection from the October 16, 2026 service: "He will wipe away our tears." It is a short message, announced as such, on a subject everyone knows: sadness.

Having spoken in previous weeks about fatigue and exhaustion, then about fear and faith, and the hope and love that help carry it, he adds a third experience "that is part of the journey of our lives." He does not promise a magic solution: sadness "does not heal by itself, and even less in an instant." But he shows how Christ comes to meet the one who weeps.

Message outline

1. The saddest day of the year

The pastor starts from "Blue Monday," the third Monday of January, named in 2005 by the psychologist Cliff Arnall: the cold of winter, the debts of Christmas, the New Year's resolutions abandoned after three weeks. There is nothing scientific about it, and a travel agency even turned it into an advertising campaign.
He smiles about it: his birthday can fall on that day, and on that Monday, 95% of the days of the year are still ahead, so "95% chance of success."
What he does know is that sadness is part of everyone's life. He himself, rather cheerful by temperament, remembers a period after the pandemic when sadness overwhelmed him for a few weeks.
A psychology textbook describes it as a drop in the usual mood, ranging "from mild anguish to the intense pain of grief or depression." The psychologist Abascal calls it "the Cinderella of the emotions," because it is less studied than the others.
It is not necessarily negative: it arises after losses, bereavements, disappointments and failures, and can help us accept and reorient our lives. Where anger pushes us to fight for what we are about to lose, sadness invites us to let go and look for other paths.

2. The Bible does not hide tears

Sadness appears more than 50 times in the Bible, deep lamentation more than 10 times, weeping more than 50 times, affliction more than 100 times. Numbers that are not enough to express the complexity of our states of mind.
The pastor recalls two verses that come to everyone's mind: "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted" (Matthew 5:4) and the promise of Revelation 21:4, that God will wipe away every tear. He wants to speak of a Christ who wipes away our tears, "because maybe, I hope not, you too are feeling sad right now."
David weeps for his son Absalom after recovering his kingdom. Nehemiah is overwhelmed by the ruined walls of Jerusalem. The disciples are saddened by the announcement of Jesus' death, and Jesus himself, in Gethsemane, speaks of his deep sorrow.
The pastor tells the story of 2 Samuel 12: David's sin with Bathsheba, the death of Uriah sent to the front line, the word of the prophet Nathan, then the sick child for whom David fasts and pleads for seven days, before the child dies.
Jacob refuses to let Benjamin go, saying that they would bring his gray hairs down in sorrow to the realm of the dead. The pastor admits that he sometimes quotes this verse, laughing, to the musicians when worship does not go well.
Psalm 31 describes a distress that consumes the eyes, the soul and the body. Psalm 137 voices the sadness of a whole people: "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down. Yes, we wept when we remembered Zion."
Sadness hides well: even in the midst of laughter the heart can be grieving (Proverbs 14:13). King Ahab, for his part, is both sad and irritated when Naboth refuses to sell him his vineyard, a sign that sadness and anger resemble each other.

3. There is sadness and there is sadness

Jesus warns against a religion with a gloomy face: when you fast, do not look sad like the hypocrites (Matthew 6:16). The pastor has in mind those spiritualities where people put on a long face "so that others can see that we are spiritual." That has nothing to do with spirituality.
Sometimes sadness is the fruit of our mistakes and sins, and the Lord uses it to correct us. Paul writes to the Corinthians: "For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, which brings no regret. But the sorrow of the world produces death" (2 Corinthians 7:10).
There is also a sadness that locks us in. The book of Wisdom, a deuterocanonical book of Catholic Bibles, speaks of a "divinized" sadness: what we have lost becomes an idol, our sight becomes blurred and we live in the past, in what we no longer have or what we no longer are.
In the face of all this, the Bible presents a Christ who draws near with empathy to those who suffer. Believers are not strangers to the pains of the soul.

4. Reconciling sadness with the joy of the Gospel

The pastor chooses his words carefully: he does not want to say that Christ "heals" sadness, as if it were a disease, but that he "reconciles" it, that he brings it into relationship with what he is doing in our lives.
Joy is not the exact opposite of sadness. After church, we answer "everything is fine" to whoever asks how we are, but, as the Spanish expression goes, we suffer in silence.
He remembers the hymn sung almost every Sunday in his childhood: "A heart that has Christ cannot be sad." His answer: yes, a heart that has Christ can be sad. We know it from experience. But the Gospel remains a source of joy.
Isaiah announced the time of the Messiah as a time of gladness: "everlasting joy will be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away" (Isaiah 35:10). In Luke, the angel announces "good news of great joy which will be to all the people" (Luke 2:10).
This joy can be cultivated: "Rejoice in the Lord always!" (Philippians 4:4). It does not chase sadness away by magic, but it helps.
The pastor mentions his grandfather: he had every reason to be a sad man, given all he had been through, and yet he had a contagious joy, the fruit of the Gospel that had transformed his soul. We know what we carry in our backpacks, and it is not settled with a pat on the back. "But we have the Lord who fills us with his joy."

5. Reconciling sadness with hope

There is something even more powerful than joy: hope. The psalmist talks to himself: "Why are you in despair, my soul? Why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God! For I will yet praise him" (Psalm 42:11).
Psalm 13, read at the beginning of the service, starts with "How long?" and ends with trust: "But I trust in your loving kindness. My heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to Yahweh, because he has dealt bountifully with me" (Psalm 13:5-6).
Sadness often comes from losses that are hard to repair and from griefs that never quite heal. But the hope of Christ opens new doors and possible futures.
To the Sadducees who want to trap him, Jesus answers that God "is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Matthew 22:32). God is a God of the future, who makes rivers flow in the desert (Isaiah 43:19) and opens possibilities where no one sees any.
Do not settle for a hope reserved for the end of time: it transforms your present, here and now. God takes care of you, he walks with you, he helps you in your difficulties.

6. Reconciling sadness with the comfort of Christ

At least 550 years before the birth of Jesus, Isaiah 61 announced the one who would come to heal the brokenhearted, to comfort all who mourn, and to give them a garment of praise instead of a spirit of heaviness.
Jesus read this passage in the synagogue of Nazareth and applied it to himself (Luke 4). Binding up broken hearts and comforting those who grieve is his mission.
Paul blesses the "Father of mercies and God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our affliction, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, through the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God" (2 Corinthians 1:3-4). The pastor sums up what sounds like a tongue twister: God has comforted us with all his comfort so that we can comfort those who suffer.

7. The inheritance that changes how we see

To conclude, the pastor takes money worries, which almost everyone knows: the loan, the price of gas. Imagine you were the beneficiary of a fund that, after a certain time, would make you the heir of a fortune able to cover all your needs. You would walk more relaxed, you would say: "I have a cushion, I will inherit tomorrow."
This is what Revelation 21 does: John sees a new heaven and a new earth, the new Jerusalem, the dwelling of God with men. "He will wipe away from them every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more." And the one seated on the throne says: "Behold, I am making all things new."
From Genesis to Revelation, this great love story ends with a new creation. "At the heavenly bank," we are heirs of this hope.
The pastor returns to David. The account in 2 Samuel 12, so wise in the way it is told, does not stop at the child's death: it ends with the birth of Solomon. God again sends Nathan, the prophet who had denounced the fault, to call him Jedidiah, "because I love him deeply." David no doubt understood that God opens new paths for those who know how to see them by faith.
Sadness sometimes blurs our sight. His prayer: that we may see by faith all that God can do, be filled with the hope of Jesus Christ who gives new beginnings, and that "he wipe away all our tears."

Key takeaways

Sadness is part of everyone's life, believers included: the Bible speaks of it hundreds of times, without hiding it.
It is not necessarily bad: godly sorrow leads to repentance, but a sadness that turns our losses into an idol locks us in the past.
Christ does not make sadness disappear by magic, he reconciles it with the joy, the hope and the comfort of the Gospel.
God comforts us so that we can in turn comfort those who suffer.
We are heirs of a promise: one day, God will wipe away every tear, and this certainty already changes the way we go through trials.

Personal application

Is there a sadness you hide behind an "everything is fine"? Whom could you talk to about it this week?
Does your current sadness push you toward God, or does it lock you in what you have lost?
What simple actions could help you cultivate the joy of the Gospel, without denying what hurts you?
Like the psalmist, what could you say to your soul to invite it to hope in God?
Who around you needs the comfort that God has already given you?

Verses cited

Frequently asked questions

Can a Christian be sad?

Yes. The pastor recalls the old hymn "a heart that has Christ cannot be sad," then corrects it: a heart that has Christ can be sad, and we know it from experience. The Bible is full of grieving believers, from David to Jesus himself in Gethsemane.

Why talk about reconciling sadness rather than healing it?

For the preacher, sadness is not necessarily an illness. It can be an emotion that helps us accept a loss and reorient our lives. He therefore prefers to speak of bringing it into relationship with what Christ does in us: the joy, the hope and the comfort of the Gospel.

What does Revelation 21 promise to those who weep?

Revelation 21 announces a new heaven and a new earth where God will wipe away every tear and where there will be no more death, mourning, crying or pain. The pastor compares this promise to a guaranteed inheritance: whoever knows it faces today's difficulties differently.