The Shroud Could Not Extinguish the Light of the World

"When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, 'I am the Light of the World. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.'"
John 8:12

     Can you think of a darker place than a tomb? Eyelids close over beautiful eyes that once danced with life. Busy hands forever at rest, now as cold as alabaster. No rise and fall of the chest; the beating heart has been stilled.

     After Jesus died on the cross, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea took his body and lovingly prepared it for burial with spices and strips of linen. I imagine they grieved over the finality and futility of it all. Jesus, who healed the lame and loved the sinners, who taught with authority and walked on water, who calmed a raging storm and fed thousands with a little boy's lunch - this vibrant, original Jesus was now still, stiff, silent. As they wrapped his tortured body in the shroud and placed the burial cloth on his bearded face, they had to wonder: Is this all there is?

     Three days passed. The men have left, the tomb's been sealed. All is quiet...until the Light of the World radiated from inside the battered body. The chest rose with a new breath, the heart pumped blood throughout as the eyelids fluttered open against the cloth. The resurrected Victor over death rose through the shroud, folded the burial cloth that had been around his head and walked out.

     In his book "Unexplained Mysteries of Heaven and Earth", Pastor Ron Phillips asked this question: "How did the body get out of the shroud?" He researched a paper coauthored by attorney and historian Mark Antonacci and physicist Arthur Lind entitled "Particle Radiation from the Body." They say that the Shroud of Turin may represent a kind of photograph taken at the instant Jesus's body transformed as He rose from the dead. The image visible today on the shroud could not have been preserved in the way it was if human hands had unwrapped the body. Only radiation, or light, coming from within the body would explain it.

     Pastor Phillips concluded, "I believe that God knew there would be skeptics. There are those among us who are always analytical, always asking questions. They demand proof. They want something they can actually touch. The shroud is yet another evidence of the superiority of Christianity over Islam, Buddhism and Judaism...because the God we serve is alive today, and we have physical proof!"

     Any believer in Christ does not have to fear the darkness of the tomb. Jesus has shed light into that area to show us the way out. Follow Him and you will never walk in darkness.