Traveling

“Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will shelter them with His presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” -Revelation 7:15-17

I recently read through the book of Revelation, a book that confuses me more than most other books in the Bible, and yet contains some of the most hopeful glimpses of what redemption brings.

As I sit here in the heat of Mundri, feeling my own foreignness, I am struck by the personal intimacy of Revelation 7:17: God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. It is strange living in a place where war is the context of many people’s experience. It is not as if people are thinking all the time about suffering and difficulty. Instead, the impact of war creates a frame of reference, or a context, on which the normal stories of life have to sit.

As I start to get to know people, memories of war are a part of most stories I hear. While I am taking pictures of a group of students at the newly reopened Bible college, the bishop pulls me aside to point out a large trench where people used to dive when they worried about planes flying overhead. My language helper tells me the story of her life, remembering dates of her family’s displacement due to the war. A counselor I talk to remembers a young girl she knew who died when a land mine exploded as she tried to get mangoes.

Things currently seem peaceful in Southern Sudan. And yet, there are so many tears that have fallen here and so many stories that are hard to hear. I see a need for the sheltering presence of the One who sits on the throne. I have hope that what Revelation says is true, that one day He will wipe away every tear, and I want that day will be soon.

Today, my initial Advent reading took me to a Sylvia Plath poem. Not exactly the author I would choose for Advent, but her poem “Black Rook in Rainy Weather” ends with this line: The wait’s begun again, The long wait for the angel, For that rare, random descent.

And so, appropriately, we stand on the edge of the Advent season and I find myself waiting. Waiting for what Revelation says to prove true, for a day when hunger, thirst, and scorching heat are over and tears are wiped away. Waiting for a Savior to descend, to come again. Until then, I find hope in new friends who know better than I do that God is faithful even in suffering and that He has already come and begun the work of wiping our tears away.