It is said all the time, “If God would only give proof of his existence, I would believe.” or “Why doesn’t he give us a sign and so more would believe.” Or even, “Unless I see the mark of the nails on his hands and put my finger into the place where the nails pierced and insert my hand into his side, I will not believe.” (oh boy, Thomas’ words from John 20:25). So many people only believe in things that are presented to them straight away, but what if Jesus left something behind, something for us to find and study thousands of years after his bloody death? And what if that something actually proved the resurrection because of what was left behind? That something is the Shroud of Turin. Dr. Gilbert R. Lavoie lays out the proofs that the Shroud itself is miraculous, but that it also is in fact Jesus’ image burned onto the cloth in The Shroud of Jesus And The Sign John Ingeniously Concealed. Let’s look at some of the facts discovered.
Down to the Basics
In order to start down the path of belief, we first must establish the basics of the Shroud. It is a long burial cloth, it is quite old, it survived a fire and storage over at least hundreds of years. When looking at the pattern on the cloth, it seems as if it is a man, with many wounds all over his body, and most distinctly, there is more blood on his head and bloody holes close to his wrists and feet, consistent with crucifixion. On the most basic level, the burial cloth shows a man who suffered greatly and was crucified.
St. John – Eye-Witness Testimony
John was one of Jesus’ closest friends and was the only apostle who gave us witness of the Crucifixion. He walked with Jesus, He was given his Mother at the foot of the Cross. And he witnessed the cruelty of the Roman solders as the beat, mocked Him with a thorny crown and scourged our Lord. Finally, he watched as his Friend was nailed to the cross and lifted up to die. St. John details these tortures not only to document how Jesus died, but also all of these details line up exactly with the physical evidence of the Shroud. John also mentions the burial cloth and how it was left behind in the tomb, rolled up. Was John the first owner of the miracle cloth?
Still Not Enough? Science
Short of Jesus showing up in our living room (which would be awesome), what proof does the Shroud give us to say this was Jesus’? First the images surviving thousands of years is miraculous. The fact that the cloth itself hasn’t broken into a few remaining threads (similar as the Tilma still remains with the image of Our Lady of Guadelupe). At face value (see what I did there), it is not a painting with the image sitting on top of the threads, the blood on top has been abraded off over time but there is still blood deep intertwined in the threads.
What of the image itself
This is fascinating:
“Because the fibers under the blood were white, it meant (1) that the blood went onto the cloth before the image marks and (2) that the blood protected the fibers from whatever caused the image to occur. Therefore, we can conclude that the blood came first and the image came later.”
Don’t know about you, but I don’t know of any artist or painter who would create any work of art in this manner if they just wanted an image of a man on a cloth, do you?
How did the image get there? When the image is studied, why is his hair as if he is standing and not laying down? These are just a few of the questions that science cannot answer.
These are just a few of the amazing facts you will learn more in depth about the Shroud that is in Dr. Gilbert Lavoie’s The Shroud of Jesus: And the Sign John Ingeniously Concealed. It is laid out very logically and methodically in a way that even any doubting Thomas would appreciate. It is also heartbreaking and difficult to read how this man was tortured and crucified from the image that remains on the cloth. What is also amazing is how Dr. Lavoie mirrors what is found on the Cloth with the Gospel of John, the witness of the Crucifixion. Doubting Thomas? My Lord, and my God!