Last night I was talking with a friend about some of the world’s glaring evils. It was a good, but hard conversation and I was sad afterward. A heaviness settled in. I went to the basement, turned on football and grabbed a book I was trying to finish off (it had grown tedious). But a section I read that night changed the night.

When Christ returns, our beloved departed saints will return with him (Jude 14), quite literally bringing heaven to earth. Then the glory of heaven, God’s dwelling place, will bathe the world in God’s own light and beauty.

The hope we treasure and invite others to in our mission is the climax of the Gospel of Jesus manifested on the earth. The Lord’s own brilliant fullness will surge out into all that is now empty, pitiful, and poor. When he comes, all that is presently distorted and broken by sin will be untwisted and made whole. Sadness and shame will be banished. Glorious day will chase away the night as the Lord shines, bringing his salvation to bear on all things. Our bodies will be transformed and glorified (1 Cor 15:42-52), bidding goodbye to illness, weakness, and disability. The creation, too, will be freed from its sin-induced bondage to corruption (Romans 8:21), so the rocks that have never cried out and praised (Luke 19:40) will then burst into song (Isaiah 44:23), and the trees will applaud with joy (Isaiah 55:12). The radiant presence of God himself will drive out darkness, death and sin. There simply will not be room for them as the whole world reels and resounds with his glory…

Not a single grain of sand or one blade of grass in all the world – and no hair on your head – will escape the tide of renewing blessing that will sweep over the earth.

No lingering shadow of darkness will be unlit, no residue of curse and evil will cling on, and none of the goodness dammed up in the heart of our Father will be kept back from us. The full effects of his Son’s glorious Easter victory that, for now, he only contains in heaven out of merciful patience with the lost (1 Peter 3:9), he will finally and gladly unleash upon us

– God Shines Forth, Daniel Hames and Michael Reeves (pg 152-154)

Sadness doesn’t disappear, but it certainly gets reframed in light of eternal hope and glory.