I am constantly startled when I come across things in the Bible that I should’ve seen but I don’t remember ever being aware of. Sometimes it’s not earthshaking, just surprising. One of those happened at Wednesday night Bible study. We were reading about the crucifixion of Jesus in Matthew, and we came to these verses,
Matthew 27:52-53 (KJV) 52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, 53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.I was aware of this passage, and of the “saints” rising from the dead and walking around. If nothing else, the current infatuation with zombies would bring that to mind. What I had not seen before was that this took place after the resurrection of Jesus. In other words, this is a passage that is written later, and then inserted as something that was going to happen, tying it to the resurrection.
Interesting.
It doesn’t change my world or bring out any new theological perspectives. It did make me start wandering in my mind and associating details that have nothing to do with each other. One thing that came to mind was the Shroud of Turin. I had just watched part of a video of a priest who is in charge of research on the shroud. It was very interesting and of course one of the discussions was “Is this really the shroud of Jesus”, which is one point. Another is, if it’s not the shroud of Jesus is it from the time when Jesus was crucified. The priest, of course, said he would love it to be proven to be the shroud of Jesus, but even if it wasn’t he’s considered it’s still a wonderful investigation because there’s so many mysteries involved in it.
I got to thinking. If this were not the burial shroud of Jesus, but was from that time with all of the mysteries involved in how it was produced, could it have been the shroud of one of those saints that were resurrected? Letting my mind wander further, was it the divine force that caused Jesus to be resurrected that somehow bled over into the other graves nearby, and did the same mysterious force project through other shrouds? I guess it’s just nonsense speculation, but that’s how my mind works.
homo unius libri
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