Friday 25 March 2016

Holy Saturday and new beginnings

I can’t sleep tonight – so, I found myself imagining what it was like for Jesus on Holy Saturday.

I was reminded of my experience of being wrapped in David Rolfe’s replica of the Turin Shroud, lying on my back with my arms and legs folded.  This was a comfortable position and quite restful.  Then the cloth was folded over my head and the other end taken over me down to my feet, and then the sides folded over to cocoon me in.  Incidentally, we discovered that I may be an inch taller than Jesus.
By Unknown - Own work, photographed at Saint-Sulpice, Paris, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8476113

And then the questions start – how did the 3D image of a corpse get singed as such a thin surface layer on the cloth?  It is in 3D because the intensity of the image seems to be in proportion to the distance from the cloth, so darkest where it was touching (usually the images we see today are reversed so that the image is white on black to enhance it).  Whether we believe the shroud dates to Jesus time or not, the question remains because intense bursts of radiated energy were unknown in medieval times.

Whilst my belief in the resurrection is founded on plenty of evidence already without the need for the existence of a genuine burial cloth, it is a fascinating question.  So, what if it is genuine?  Maybe we learn something about the nature of resurrection (i.e. it is “nature” because God creates/does it)…

Although not to be read as a scientific explanation of creation, ‘Day 1’ only gets going in the Bible when God says, “Let there be light”.  Similarly, in the New Testament, John's Gospel begins by referring to Jesus as the Light in the World (“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:4-5).  John also writes “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).

As I was ill earlier in the week, I also happened to switch on the TV at 3.30am and was fascinated by Jim Al-Khalili’s programme mentioning Georges LemaĆ®tre, the Belgian priest who first applied Einstein’s laws to come up with the suggestion that all the universe originated from a single point and has been expanding ever since.  Even Einstein dismissed him at first, but science has caught up with LemaĆ®tre’s ideas and the Big Bang theory is now regarded as true as it gets from the evidence of the red shift of distant galaxies moving fastest away at around a tenth of the speed of light and also microwave radiation signature which is everywhere in the background (you may need to watch the programme!).

So, bear with me here, this is how my mind works and I have to live it…  what if the same background radiation signature at the beginning of creation is the same energy that we will experience as we share in our new life in Christ, the light?  To a Christian who believes absolutely in the scientific method to discover the wonder of creation, I can’t wait to find out…

In the meantime, have a look at David Rolfe’s website and documentary on the subject of the ShroudEnigma – fascinating!