Posted on 07/28/2019 6:02:04 AM PDT by Kaslin
In an imaginary “ranking” of Christian topics that elicit the most fervent discussions, Jesus Christ is No. 1. But near the top is the Shroud of Turin — believed by millions of Christians to be the authentic burial cloth of Jesus. This “ranking” was inspired by you — Townhall readers who wrote over 500 impassioned comments in response to my July 21 piece, “Shroud of Turin: New Test Concludes 1988 ‘Medieval Hoax’ Dating Was a Fraud.”
I purposely read all your comments to gain insight into my role as an adviser and fundraiser for a groundbreaking exhibition about the Shroud of Turin at the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C. This spectacular museum, among the largest and highest rated in the city, is located only three blocks from the Capitol. And just prior to the January 20, 2021, presidential inauguration is when this high-tech Shroud exhibit is scheduled to open.
Threaded throughout hundreds of your responses about all aspects of the Shroud was one overarching theme summarized by these three comments:
“Anyone who requires physical evidence to underpin their faith doesn’t understand the concept of faith.”
“JESUS CHRIST died for all. HE is what is important. Making such a fuss about this piece of cloth is a distraction from HIS work of SALVATION.”
“I respectfully submit that the only ‘relic’ which really matters is the one which was left us on that first Easter morning: The tomb is empty! He is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Alleluia!”
Of course, “He is Risen” is also the foundation of my Christian faith, (made slightly more complicated by having been born Jewish). But I feel compelled to discuss and explore the comment that reads in part, “…such a fuss about this piece of cloth...”
And my response is simple: The Shroud of Turin exists because HE exists. An answer that echoes what God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am. Say this to the people of Israel: I Am has sent me to you” (Exodus 3:14).
Thus, the existence of the Shroud of Turin raises two questions that I will attempt to address: First, what exactly is the Shroud? And second, a deeper dive into “Why does the cloth exist?”
The Shroud of Turin is a 14.5-by-3.5-foot linen cloth with a linear front to back mirror image of a crucified man. The Shroud has the distinction of being the most studied artifact in the world, yet the cloth’s numerous mysteries remained unexplained by modern science.
At this moment the Shroud lies in a fireproof box in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Turin, Italy, as it has continuously since 1578. (But secretly relocated between 1939 and 1946 when Italian authorities feared Hitler was seeking possession.)
Dating the Shroud has been controversial and the subject of my July 21 piece.
Among Shroud historians, there is no dispute that in 1352, over 200 years before the Shroud was housed in Turin, Geoffrey DeCharney displayed the cloth in Lirey, France marking the beginning of the Shroud’s documented "modern" dating.
There is also much circumstantial Shroud evidence through art, artifacts, and coins that pre-dates 1352. Moreover, scientifically verified botanical evidence found on the cloth in the form of pollen, dust, flowers, and even the weave and type of linen traces the Shroud back to first-century Jerusalem.
The cloth with its mysterious properties has survived wars, invasions and the ravages of time including numerous fires — most recently in 1997 at its home cathedral in Turin.
Most harrowing was the 1532 fire in Chambéry, France. Miraculously the entire cloth was not destroyed but left those distinctive linear markings along both sides of the Shroud that we see today. Hard to imagine, but the linen cloth was stored in a silver box, folded in 48 layers, when drops of molten silver burned through the cloth’s outer folded edges.
The point is, against all the odds, the Shroud exists. And, as stated earlier, because He exists. There is also a significant Bible-based reason found in the Gospel of John known as “Doubting Thomas” (John 20:24-31).
But first, a “guest” who will explain this passage needs a proper introduction:
It turns out that the many Townhall readers who commented about not needing the Shroud’s “physical evidence to underpin their faith,” represent a large swath of Christian believers. I learned this when asking Russ Breault— my fellow Shroud exhibit team colleague, and a world-renowned Shroud expert and speaker — if he had experienced similar attitudes after over 30 years of hosting his popular “Shroud Encounters” to sell-out crowds.
Breault replied:
“I get that statement all the time! When someone says, ‘I don't need the Shroud for my faith,’ I usually say, ‘That is fantastic! But that doesn't mean the Shroud was not meant for someone else.’ ”
Breault continued: “In the Doubting Thomas story, Jesus pronounced a blessing on those who ‘believe yet have not seen,’ but Jesus did not condemn Thomas for his unbelief. In fact, a week after the Resurrection, Jesus appeared a second time, and the first person he spoke to was Thomas, who was not there to witness Jesus’ first appearance. Jesus then quotes Thomas' words back to him, ‘Thomas, thrust your hand into my side and place your fingers into my nail wounds and be not faithless but believe.’
At this point, Thomas — forever known as "Doubting Thomas" — makes the strongest profession of faith in the New Testament saying, "My Lord and my God." Then Jesus pronounced a blessing on those who can believe without seeing. So we are blessed if we can believe without seeing, but we are not cursed if we can't get there without some additional evidence.
Therefore, perhaps the Shroud is a silent witness to the world offering all of humanity the same opportunity Jesus gave to Thomas. In some proverbial sense by looking at the Shroud, we too can thrust our hand into His side and place our fingers into His nail wound and find our faith in the process.”
Thank you, Russ! And now my final thoughts for Townhall commenters.
If blessed with great faith, you are free to ignore or downplay the image on the Shroud showing Christ’s great suffering and victory over death. Yet, take comfort in knowing that the Shroud is there to supplement or reinforce the faith of others while potentially witnessing to the ever-increasing number of Doubting Thomases found throughout the world.
In the end, I believe that the Shroud exists as proof of God’s greatest gift to mankind —the Lord Jesus Christ — who lives and reigns forever and ever. Alleluia!
(Now, let the comments begin!)
2Co 5:7 (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Heb 11:3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
i am Christ’s and He is mine. Thank you again for your kind wishes but not even you ca separate me from my Savior
Your remark shows your ignorance of the Catholic faith. Although, in your defense, that is a common misconception of those outside the Catholic faith.
While we show honor and respect to the communion of Saints, Catholics, like all true Christians, worship the King of the universe, the True Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
My God bless you in your efforts to find the Truth.
I was going to ask you what fire, but I did a search and found out there was one in 1997
What does Jimmy Swaggart know? Absolutely nothing
The fact of the Incarnation disproves your point.
He lived as a true Man in a definite time and place, who was witnessed by countless people that attested to His Life, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension. He is a real Person, who physically existed.
To say that He left no physical proof of His existence is to say the Incarnation never happened, that Christ was a mere phantom. It implicitly denies the testimony of the Gospels, even you do not mean it.
‘Because it’s a natural artifact and we live in a natural cosmos.’
ah, I see that you, like myself, like to live on the edge and post about things like rational empiricism on a piety infused forum like this; kudos...
And how did the natural cosmos come to be?
God actualizes it. But don't be mistaken, the verb tense is only a convention we mortals are forced to use in order to make sense of something that to us is inscrutable.
‘All things are of natural origin, nothing can possibly be of supernatural origin, ergo the Shroud of Turin definitively must be of natural origin.’
of course it’s a natural object; it is visible, it has form and substance, and can in fact be studied...
No, and I don't possibly see how you can infer anything about my belief system based on my attitude toward the Shroud. Have you even read my tagline?
‘Follow your relics and lying wonders and Ill take Christ.’
theists spatting back and forth over stuff like angels dancing on pin heads are really quite amusing...
Au contraire, a very small degree of ionizing radiation over a very long period of time ... the long period of time which, according to the Byzantine history of the Mandylion, the cloth remained in hiding in the walls of Edessa. Radiation from radioactive elements that occur naturally in sedimentary rock, of the sort used to produce statuary.
So based on your tagline, you profess that we creatures (and perhaps all of Creation) are merely extensions of God, to some degree?
My belief is that God actualizes the cosmos and that he uses Man as a means of interacting physically with it. You might get a better sense of where I'm coming from if you read my novel "A Fantasía for Two Lutes."
Why would God need a creature to interact with something He created? Is it simply a matter of preference, or is it a limitation?
By your wisdom you are to cherish nothing, no thing. How dare you believe your words and thoughts have merit. To be true to yourself you must be a worm.
I rarely notice peoples “taglines”.
“...infer anything about my belief system based on my attitude toward the Shroud.”
If you look closely at the posts you sent me, that inference was not a huge leap....
1. You believe something that has really no evidence to back it up other than preconceived reliance on your overarching perception of the macrocosm in general.
2. You believe something very few other people believe as you are the first person I have ever heard or read about that maintains that opinion. (almost everyone appears to hold that the Shroud is either authentically evidence of Christ’s resurrection or a fake)
3. Your references to “natural artifact” which it may or not be and “natural cosmos” which it may or not be certainly give one the impression that your adherence to the principle of the “natural” rather than “supernatural being exclusively the way things occur.
Those were my clues. I beg your pardon if I have misinterpreted the underlying meaning of your posts and or offended you.
Vlad, your question begs your answer and therefore makes no sense. What if Christ came and left no relics?
Neither can be answered,nor need be.
Like I have been asking of late, with whom have you shared the Gospel of Christ (Grace) with today? That’s what matters to Him.
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