The Last All-Clear

On May 8, 1945, Margaret Collins stood in her kitchen in London's East End when the church bells began to ring. Not the frantic, warning bells she'd known for six years, but something she'd almost forgotten — bells ringing for joy. She walked to her front door and opened it. Neighbors poured into the street, some laughing, some weeping, some doing both at once. The blackout curtains came down. Windows blazed with light for the first time in years. Margaret stood on her front step and realized she was listening for something — the sirens. They didn't come. For the first time in 2,074 nights, they would not come.

That evening, she wrote to her sister: "It's as if someone has made the whole world new."

John saw something like that, but infinitely greater. In Revelation 21, he describes the moment when God makes not just a city or a nation new, but everything — a new heaven and a new earth. The old order of death and grief and pain doesn't just pause. It passes away entirely. And God Himself moves in among His people, close enough to wipe the tears from their faces with His own hand.

Margaret's war ended. But John saw the end of every war, every sorrow, every midnight fear. The sirens will never sound again.