The Wheels Within Wheels and the Rainbow Throne

Five summers after King Nebuchadnezzar's soldiers marched King Jehoiachin away to Babylon, a priest named Ezekiel was living beside the river Kebar with the other captives from Judah. Jerusalem was still standing, far away.

Ezekiel turned thirty that year. (Back home, thirty was the age a priest began his work in God's temple. Ezekiel's temple was hundreds of miles away, on the other side of a desert.)

The captives carried one worry everywhere they went. "God's house is in Jerusalem," they said. "How will he ever find us out here?"

Then, on the fifth day of the fourth month, the sky over the river split open.

A storm came roaring out of the north, a huge cloud with fire flashing inside it. Out of the fire came four living creatures. Each was shaped something like a person, with four wings and four faces: a man's face in front, a lion's on the right, an ox's on the left, and an eagle's at the back. Their feet gleamed like polished bronze, and lightning darted between them. When they flew, their wings roared like a flood.

Beside each creature stood a wheel that sparkled like a jewel, and inside each wheel was a second wheel, set crosswise. So the wheels could roll north, south, east, or west without ever turning. (Anyone who has tried to steer a shopping cart around a crowded store would like a set of those.) The tall rims were covered all over with eyes. Wherever the creatures went, the wheels went too, because the creatures' spirit was in the wheels.

Wings and wheels and eyes: this was a throne built to travel, and to see everything on the way.

Over their heads stretched a floor that shone like ice, and on it stood a throne as blue as sapphire. And on the throne sat someone who looked like a man. From the waist up he gleamed like hot metal; from the waist down he was like fire; and brightness blazed all around him.

Around that brightness curved a rainbow, the kind that shows up in the clouds on a rainy day. God had first hung that bow in the sky for Noah, as a promise he would keep forever.

Ezekiel kept writing "something like" and "it looked like," because ordinary words were not big enough. Even his last line said it carefully: "This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD."

The glory of God had come to Babylon, to a riverbank full of homesick captives. Ezekiel fell flat on his face, and he heard a voice speaking.

Ezekiel saw the man on the throne from far below, through fire, and only for a little while. He could not walk up to him. Nobody could.

Kings and prophets came and went after Ezekiel, and God's people kept hoping that his glory would one day come close and stay.

Six hundred years after the river Kebar, three fishermen climbed a mountain with their teacher. There his face began to shine like the sun, and his clothes turned as bright as lightning. A shining cloud came down, and a voice spoke out of it: "This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!" The fishermen fell on their faces, just as Ezekiel had.

Then their teacher came over and touched them. "Get up," he said. "Don't be afraid."

It was Jesus. The man from the rainbow throne had come close enough to touch.