The Last Shall Be First

John 20:27, "Then Jesus said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.'"

Here is Jesus, raised from the dead, in his glorified body. We know that this new body is supernatural and superhuman, because just one verse before it says, "...though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them..." And yet, even in his glorified state, he instructs Thomas, "see my hands." The scars left from the nails and the spear remained in his glorified state.

This verse has helped me more than any other with regard to not only accepting, but coming to joyfully treasure the scars on my face. Christ himself, who had the power to conquer death and raise himself from the grave and walk through locked doors, kept his scars.

Another passage that has always intrigued me is Ezekiel 10. This is the eerie "whirling wheels" passage where the glory of God departs from the temple. The cherubim is very archaically described. It almost sounds...this is daring, I know...it almost sounds like the angels are confined to wheelchairs! Listen to this description from verses 9-13:

I looked, and I saw beside the cherubim four wheels, one beside each of the cherubim; the wheels sparkled like chrysolite. As for their appearance, the four of them looked alike; each was like a wheel intersecting a wheel. As they moved, they would go in any one of the four directions the cherubim faced; the wheels did not turn about as the cherubim went. The cherubim went in whatever direction the head faced, without turning as they went. Their entire bodies, including their backs, their hands and their wings, were completely full of eyes, as were their four wheels. I heard the wheels being called "the whirling wheels."

Angels confined to wheels? A Savior with scars?

I am sitting here racking my brains to come up with some sort of nice pat ending - some sort of conclusion to make sense of this, and I'm drawing a total blank. All I can really say is, I think when we get to Heaven we will all be very, very surprised by God's definition of "beautiful."