I would be remiss if in discussing the Theology of the Shroud, if I didn’t mention the sacramental characteristics of the Shroud of Turin, particularly to the Churches with a sacramental system, in particular, the Catholic Church. A common definition of a sacrament is a visible sign instituted by God to bring forth His grace. While this isn’t a complete nor is it necessarily the best definition of a sacrament, it will suffice for our current discussion.
If the Shroud is given to us by God, as this book testifies to that fact, the truth that it is an instrument that God has used in the lives of countless people to bring them closer to God through meditating on its visible image, is testament to the fact that this visible sign given by God brings forth the invisible grace of conversion, and the grace of a deepening of faith. The “hidden image” in the Shroud is almost a sign pointing how the invisible is contained in the visible—always presence but not always seen.
The Shroud has a unique connection to Baptism and Eucharist, the two sacraments that are the obsessive focus of the Gospel of John.1 The Eucharist is somewhat obvious, the image of the very Body of Christ, and the actual Blood of Christ is present on the cloth, not in a sacramental sign, under the appearance of food and drink, but in its natural form and through a historical “touching” of the physical Jesus. Baptism (as well as a further Eucharistic sign) is seen in the wound in the side. On the Shroud, scientists found not only blood, but a watery serum from the pleural effusion that caused blood and water to flow from the side of Jesus when the lance pierced Him (see John 19:34). The blood and water were commonly seen, and still are seen, as signs of Baptism and the Eucharist by many Churches. As the First letter of John states, “this is He who came by water and the blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.”2Jesus came by water and the blood, He gives us the water and the blood, and it is with the water and the blood that we are cleansed and nourished. Furthermore, the Spirit, the water, and the blood testify to the Christ: “For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.”3 All of them witness to the Christ, all of them are instruments of Christ’s grace, and all of them are present on the Shroud! The water and blood physically, and the Spirit through its action upon the cloth.
1. For an in depth look at this argument, please read Oscar Cullman’s Early Christian Worship published by Wyndham Hall Press.
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