During his communion reflection Gary Robbins made mention of a book he is reading that examines how 15-30 year olds in the United States view the church. If you are interesting in learning more about this subject the book is entitled, UnChristian. To read my review of the book see the "Byron's Brief Book Reviews" section on this blog.
Some see End Times as a subject for those who are curious about the future. Interesting information, perhaps, but not really that relevant. The New Testament writers saw it as just the opposite. They viewed End Times as a subject that should define how we live right now! Any information the Holy Spirit communicated through their writings about the future is intended to make a difference in our day to day activities.
On a slightly different note (though not entirely); someone asked me today about cremation. Since our current natural bodies will somehow be transformed in the End to be like Jesus' body--is cremation an acceptable option for the believer. If you give the lifeless body enough time after death it will look very much like cremated remains! Since God made Adam out of dust originally and the natural order of things is for our bodies to return to dust; we simply have to trust that God can recreate however much of our natural bodies as he needs to in order to "build" our new bodies. Cremation may be a very sensible option for those concerned about responsible use of the earth and/or simply being good stewards of their money.
Someone else asked me about the scars visible on Jesus' resurrected body. What are the implications for those who have terrible physical injuries in this life. Will they be hopelessly scared for eternity? The best guess I have on this (which really means I DON'T KNOW) would be that perhaps Jesus' scars in his resurrected body are more like badges of honor. It makes me wonder if others might have similar "badges" because they, like the Apostle Paul, have joined Christ in his suffering. I have every reason to believe that our resurrection bodies will not be defective or deformed (as is sometimes the case in This Age).
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I was wondering about Jesus and his ability to hide himself and reveal himself after the resurrection. I wonder if that was not something that he could do even before he got his new body. We often read of him hiding himself from the crowds or escaping and what seem like inescapable situations. Or do you think I am reading something into the text? Perhaps Jesus was just really sneaky?
That is an interesting comment Jeremy. John tells us Jesus would escape certain situations because "his time had not yet come." (See for example John 8:20.) Luke wrote about a time when some people wanted to push him off a cliff Jesus,"walked right through the crowd and went on his way" (Luke 4:30). Details of his escape were not revealed but they don't appear to be disappearing such as is recorded after the resurrection. (See for example Luke 24:31, "Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight."
You know I was wondering the same thing, about retaining the scars of this world. If Jesus is the first prototype for our new bodies and he kept his earthly scars after his Resurrection , by deductive reasoning we can assume we also would carry our own earthly scars.
But that is were my concerns end. For one, like you said, there might be another reason why Jesus kept his, maybe he knew some of his Apostle's would have a hard time believing that it was Him (ie Thomas).
And second, would we really care when the time comes? Would we all be singing prase and rejoicing in Christ's second coming just to look down at a scar or a missing body part and be like, "Great, thanks a lot for not fixing that for me!"?
I think not.
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