Home | Latest News | Lectures and Seminars | Shroud 101 | Student Center |
| Shroud University | Image Gallery | Shroud Store |
Streaming Videos - Shroud Expert Interviews

Is There a Message in the Mystery?

There is little reason to be interested in an old piece of linen unless there was the awesome possibility of it being the actual burial garment of Jesus Christ. What if it really is authentic? Is there a message in the mystery?

Just Another Relic?

Many scoff at the Shroud and compare it to just another phony relic concocted during the Middle Ages to boost church tourism. But this charge rings hollow because no other relic, such as a bone or piece of wood, bears any distinctiveness that could clearly link the artifact to Jesus. Not so with the Shroud. The cloth bears the 5'8" image of a bearded crucified man covered with blood from the wounds of an apparent crucifixion. The uniqueness of the Shroud as a relic stands head and shoulders above anything else ever claimed from the time of Christ.

The Carbon 14 Controversy

Shroud enthusiasts like to point to the "preponderance of evidence" in support of authenticity. There is a tremendous amount of circumstantial evidence that supports such a claim. One strand of evidence by itself does not make the case but muliple strands can make a strong argument, strong enough to convict in a court of law. Scott Peterson recently received the death penalty in a case that was entirely based on circumstantial evidence.

The irony is that Carbon-14 would have settled the issue already if it could be understood how the image and blood could have been transferred to the cloth during the Middle Ages. But knowing what we know about the Shroud, and about what medieval artisans were capable of, only exacerbates the mystery and compelled many to question the validity of the carbon tests.

There were enough people crying "foul" because of the botched protocol of using only one sample from a very risky location, that Dr. Ray Rogers undertook the micro-chemical tests the labs failed to do in 1988. Now it seems that the sample was indeed from a medieval re-weave perhaps done in 1534 when it was repaired following a near catastrophic fire. See Latest News for more details.

We won't know the age of the cloth until more carbon dating tests are permitted on samples that are unimpeachable. Until then, by looking at the decay of vanillin, a natural polymer that decays over time, Ray Rogers has determined a possible age range of 1,300 to 3,000 years. That makes 2,000 years a pretty good midpoint!

Who is it the man?

Some people have said that even if we were able to date it to First Century, it wouldn't prove anything. This is an absurd argument. The distinctive features related to the Crucifixion, comparing what the Gospels record and what we know about Roman crucifixion in general, renders the identity of the man as no one other than the historical Jesus of Nazareth.

How can we be so certain? You add it up. Start with the crown of thorns, a singular mockery for the "King of the Jews". His legs were not broken because he had died far sooner than most victims. He was therefore stabbed in the side to make sure he was dead before being released for burial. He he was severely scourged. This rarely happened. Either the victim was scourged and released as punishment or he was sentenced to die by crucifixion. Rarely would both be applied to the same victim. But Pontius Pilate did not want to kill Jesus. So he scourged him first hoping to appease the crowds who were calling for his death. Then he even tried to trade Barrabas, but that didn't work either. After being crucifed, his body already weakened from the scourging survived on the cross only three hours when most would stay alive all day long. At the end of the day, those who remained alive would have their legs broken accelerating death by shock and asphyxia. Afterwards they were thrown into a common grave.

Perhaps as distinctive as the crown of thorns is the fact that he was given a rich man's burial even though he died a criminal's death. The shroud is of such a high quality that only a man of great wealth could have afforded it. The Gospels record that it was Joseph of Arimathea who purchased the cloth. He was a rich man who also owned the tomb in which Jesus would be buried. Care to calculate the probabilities? Someone already has and it is millions to one.

The Shroud and Theology

Lets assume, for the sake of argument, that something went wrong with carbon dating and that it really is the actual burial cloth of Christ as much evidence would indicate. What meaning could it hold for us today?

Even religious people often question if God would work this way. Some would say that God only honors faith and faith alone ("Blessed are those who believe and have not seen"). Maybe God's heart is bigger than we think. In 1978, one of the STURP scientists said that the Shroud might be a "love letter left behind for the analytical mind."

The Heart of God

There are several verses of scripture that describe the heart of a loving God who desperately desires his creation to believe in Him.

In John 14:11 Jesus says "Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves."

Another is 2nd Peter 3:9 where Paul writes "…not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."

And another is 1st Corinthians 9:22 where Paul writes, "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some."

These verses describe a heart of God not bound by any convention as to what means he will use to win back the hearts of his creation. In John 14:11 Jesus tells the people thronging to hear him and understand his message, that if they found it difficult to believe his claim to being the Son of God (one with God) then they should look at the miracles he performed which all bore witness to his verbal claims and teachings. It was the miracles that set Jesus apart from any other prophet or self claimed messiah. The David Koreshs, Jim Jones and Sung Yung Moons of our day can easily be measured by the same standard and found to be far short of the true Christ.

If the Shroud were a "photograph" of the resurrection miracle, one that had no eyewitnesses, wouldn't the same truth hold today? Would God not honor the faith of someone who first needed to see something tangible first? God's will for the salvation of people hasn't changed. Another interesting verse is Matthew 13:16 where Jesus says to his followers: "But blessed are your eyes because they see and your ears because they hear. For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it." We can still "hear" him through the reading and preaching of his Word. But we can no longer "see" him, unless he intentionally left his image on a burial shroud.

It is interesting that the Shroud allows the entire world through the technologies of photography, publishing, video and even the internet to see and believe. Even the illiterate can read the "Gospel on linen."

The Great Exchange

The next verse, 2nd Timothy 3:9, "…not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" reveals the heart of God not wanting anyone to lose out on the promise of eternal life. But that everyone be given an opportunity to make things right with God through faith in his only Son, the one who he sent as a sacrifice for our failures (sins). The Shroud reveals a man whose body is beaten, cut, bruised and pierced. Jesus became sin for us. As Paul writes in 2nd Corinthians 5:21, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God". Theologians may call this "Substitutionary Atonement" others call it "The Great Exchange". We give God our failures (sins) and he gives us his righteousness thereby making a way back to a restored relationship with God.

What does sin look like? In Isaiah 1:6, the prophet is describing the sin of Israel, a nation in rebellion against God. The prophet describes their sin as a picture of a man: "From the sole of the foot, even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and bleeding wounds; they have not been drained or bound up, or softened with oil." Sound familiar? Look at the Shroud. Right down to the unwashed body this was a prophecy of the savior to come. Jesus became the man Isaiah described…he became sin. The shroud captures this image in all its stark brutality for an unbelieving world. If the image could speak, it would say "see what God was willing to do to win your wayward heart back to him". When Doubting Thomas finally saw the resurrected Christ for himself, he made the strongest profession of faith recorded in the Bible, "My Lord and my God".

In the sacrament of communion, Christians celebrate his broken body and shed blood. Its interesting to note that dating back to early Byzantine tradition, beginning in the fourth century, the communion table upon which the bread and wine were placed, was always covered with a long linen cloth representing the Shroud. The relevance is that the Shroud also contained the body and blood of Christ.

By All Possible Means

The last verse, "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some", 1st Corinthians 9:22, shows a God that will employ any means to reach the doubting hearts of humanity. The scripture reveals a heart of God so big towards us that not only did he sacrifice his own Son in the first place, but will use any means to help us believe. Doubting Thomas, the Apostle who wouldn't believe until he had seen the resurrected Christ for himself, represents all who struggle with simple faith, those who need more "evidence" before believing in a God we can't see.

Would God Use Evidence?

The resurrection is the one miracle that Jesus performed that had no eyewitnesses and yet it was the vacant shroud in the empty tomb that was the first piece of evidence that caused John and Peter to believe that he had risen! (John 20:1-9) Later, Acts 1:3 says, "After his suffering, he showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive." Is the Shroud God's way of allowing the 20th century agnostic to "see and believe" the way Doubting Thomas did?

The Image of the Invisible God?

Paul writes in the letter to the Hebrews, verse 1:3, that Jesus is "the reflection of God's glory, and the exact imprint of God's very being" (NRSV).

Another translation says "who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person"(NKJV).

And yet another translation says "The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being"(NIV)

Could this "image", "imprint" or "representation" have been captured on linen at the point of his resurrection? Words like "reflection", "brightness" and "radiance" point to the energy theories of how the Shroud image could have been formed. Whether we invoke a miracle or discover some natural cause of the image, there is little doubt it is the image of Jesus.

Paul again describes Jesus as "the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15). Could it be that the Shroud was God's way of allowing for his image to remain on the very earth he created? A continual reminder of his immense sacrifice?

The Door

The significance of the image of Christ on linen is far more profound than these words can convey. If the Shroud is real, then it is not just "evidence", it is more than just a "photograph", and it is more than a "Gospel on linen". It represents the portal to eternal life, to heaven itself. It points the way all who believe must travel. In John 13:36, Peter asks Jesus where he was going and Jesus replies "Where I am going you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterward." Jesus is referring to his death and resurrection.

Paul writes in 1st Corinthians 15:20-23 the following: "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died. For since death came through a human being, for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order; Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ." Where Jesus went, we cannot follow now but we will follow him at the time of our own resurrection.

Jesus was the first to be transformed from mortal to immortal, but that promise is also for all who believe. Our own resurrection is described in 1st Corinthians 15: 51-53: "Listen, I tell you a mystery! We will not all die but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality." Why? Because "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." (1st Cor 15:50) In verse 49 of the same chapter Paul writes, "Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust (Adam), we will also bear the image of the man of heaven."

Does the Shroud bear the image of the "man of heaven?" Does it reveal what will happen at the time of our own resurrection? Jesus says in John 10:9, "I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved…" Does the Shroud represent the door we must all pass through if we are to obtain eternity with God? The bible refers to the resurrection as our "hope" of eternal life. If the resurrection is not true then as Paul says, "our faith is in vain".

The Shroud may exist as a visual witness to a world of doubters who God loves enough to die for. But it also may be an image whose message is to strengthen resurrection hope to all that believe. The Shroud may have captured Jesus' transition from mortality to immortality, from the realm of time to the realm of eternity. Does the Shroud point the way?

Think on these things and ponder the verses. What speaks to you? Regardless of the Shroud, the resurrection of Christ and the promise of our own occupy the core of the Christian faith. May the Shroud either strengthen your faith…or lead you to it.