As long as I can remember Johnson and Johnson have advertised their Baby Shampoo as “no more tears.” According to Johnson and Johnson, “This baby shampoo’s No More Tears formula cleanses gently and rinses easily, leaving your baby’s hair soft, shiny, manageable and clean while smelling baby-fresh.” Having raised two children, I can remember the bath times where keeping the shampoo out of their eyes was always a goal. As adults, we’ve all had that experience of getting shampoo in our eyes and feeling the immediate burn in our eyes. Indeed, it can sting.
Life stings sometimes. We learn pretty soon in life that some of our experiences can sting and cause our eyes to tear up. The irritants are many: sickness, death, anxiety, uncertainty, fear, failure, rejection, disappointment; just to name a few. Life can suddenly bring us to a place where our eyes water and the tears roll. The French Enlightenment writer Voltaire said, “Tears are the silent language of grief.” The dictionary defines grief as “deep sorrow.”
Deep sorrow. These two words together even seem heavy written on the page. And when the pages of our hearts are filled with deep sorrow, the pages can be difficult to turn. When we are stuck in some form of grief brought on by the trials of this world, we are often wonder if this is simply the sad tale of human life that has no end.
In the Book of Revelation, the apostle John, while a prisoner on the Isle of Patmos, received visions of God that recognized the pain of the present but with an eye looking to a future of hope, peace, and life. In John’s vision of the Christian’s final destination, he recorded these words, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (Revelation 21: 3-4) God promises that when all is said and done that God has prepared a place for us with God where every tear will be wiped away. There will be no more tears. Imagine that; no more tears.
Our faith does not promise us a tearless life, but it does point us toward a tearless eternity. This truth does not ignore the difficulties of this life but reminds us that when all is said and done there will be “no more tears.” This is the hope we hold to when the tears of this life fall. With this hope within us, we can then reach out to others who find themselves in deep sorrow and offer them the compassion, kindness, and presence of Jesus who wept himself when he witnessed the deep sorrow of friends. We must be willing to step into the sorrow and pain of other people’s lives with God’s love in Jesus Christ. Sorrow can be deep, but God’s love will always be deeper. Tears now will one day give way to a life of “no more tears.”
Conversations from the Couch 