The Shroud of Turin: Jesus or just a man?

Notre Dame Center

This all brings me to the last and probably most influential thing that I've seen and reacted to so far on this pilgrimage...which I am tentative to say because each and every day something new seems to bring an experience that is unimaginable and invigorating in a touchingly beautiful way, that to me is almost beyond words and often earthly comprehension.

After our team had dinner (we didn't want to be rushed for this experience.)  we got to go to another exhibit after hours. ( we have a pretty amazing group leader..huh..getting us these privileges with his way of words.)

It was something that I could never have prepared myself for.  The museum was in the Notre Dame Centre (created by Father John fro Magdala!) featuring the man's countenance discovered in the shroud of Turin.  The man of the shroud is believed by many to be Jesus.  It is a mystery how the impression of a crucified man was left in these burial clothes as well as why it is the only one found yet.  There are detailed coincidences that are displayed all throughout the exhibit that share huge similarities to the burial tradition and conditions that took place for Jesus' burial that were recorded throughout the four gospels.

Shroud compared to Jesus interpretations

The impressions that were left on the shroud (burial cloth) are unmistakably one of a crucified man, due to the blood stands and hand/feet positions.  There was a poster showing how closely the face in the shroud resembles the icons and images of Jesus that date from the 4th century to the 14th century.  These are artworks that had not been associated with the discovered cloth.

After seeing the numerous explanations and evidentiary proof that dates the shroud to the 1st century, also known as the time of Pontius pilot and Jesus, the same area that Jesus would have been buried in (due to horticulture studies of flowers imprinted), and a body likely in the condition Jesus' had been left in (no broken bones, bloody head, a spear-like wound, and definite crucification wounds. Understanding these things were pretty indescribable.  

We made our way over to the holographic display of a crucified version of the man imprinted in the shroud that is behind a sheet-covered statue.  My Dad explained that the sculpture is the creation ---thanks to technology and computer graphics of 3 dimensional proportions of the mysterious man, allowing these technicians to built the body that was super-imposed onto the burial cloth.  

As Steve and my Dad removed the draped sheet that was covering a life-sized man- drained of was all light and life.  I was completely awestruck, I suddenly felt the need of a chair, for standing seemed quite

difficult.  I struggled to find my breath.  Looking into the face of a man stricken with death-- and one of the most torturous sorts.  Just soaking him in, all of his lifelessness.  For me it wasn't the usual hollow emptiness of a statue.  This was like no other sculpture I'd ever experienced.  Because it was that...an experience.

I don't think that it was simply the interpretations or scientific observations that had been discovered, dissected, and parsed from the shroud.  It was more this image, or rather human being, whom I was gazing upon.  A man-- so emaciated by compassionless pain and forsaken death that to me was a frozen proof of horror and unimaginable sorrow staring me in the face.  

 Representations of this event of passion moves me, but not in the hands down irrefutable, incomparable way that this Man of the Shroud brought upon me.  

An unshakable distraught-ness.  A feeling of helplessness, as well as of shame, guilt, mercy and undeserved  love washed over me.  Regardless of the fact that the man in the shroud could very well just be a man.  There was an equal possibility that he could also have been Jesus.  

I have been overwhelmed before..but never have I been so emotionally, spiritually, and physically rocked by anything.  I will never think of Good (unbelievable) Friday in the same way ever again-- It

wasn't that i didn't hold a reverence for it before.  But there is just some quality or characteristic that was represented in this crucified man's face and body.  a possibility of what He may have looked like-- an actual crucified man, or truly the Prince of Peace's countenance that can never be transferred through any silver screen.  I don't care who the director is.

Tonight was earthshaking of the highest caliber on my Richter Scale.

This night will be forever set apart in my mind.  

                                                                    SELAH