From the book The Woodcarver and Other Stories of Faith and Inspiration“Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails and put my finger into the print of the nails and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.” --John 20:25
His face looks incredibly lonesome, as if every one of His friends abandoned him in the moment of his greatest need. And sad—sad for all time. As if the weight of the whole world were upon His shoulders. There is an eternal pensiveness in His death pose. The stabbing thorns that cut so unkindly into His scalp and the blood that flowed from His head are visible, indelible. They are vivid, tangible signs of the once painful wounds that hurt no more. The gash in His side flows with blood now etched in to the cloth, running no more but visible still. A record of one final insult visited upon Him by a soldier’s side arm. His thumbs turn inward tightly, from the pressure of the crude nails against the radial nerves as they pierced the bones of His wrist, causing unimaginable pain. The gaping wound in the feet is visible, caused by the large nail driven into muscle and bone as if driven through a piece of wood. Preserved for all time in the fabric. Scores of blood-filled pockmarks riveted into His back by a sweating Centurion wielding a flagellum touch the fabric and testify to a brutal scourging. Leather thongs tipped with metal beads raked His flesh with incredible velocity. The fabric speaks of the indignity, suffering and humiliation inflicted on the Man, who certainly experienced every type of torture, brutality and humiliation possible, in His final hours of life on earth.
He is not painted or drawn. His face appears to be scorched onto the cloth—the product of a divine, cosmic energy—loosed at the moment of His transformation. When the Man on the cloth was resurrected. Skeptics doubt the fabric, scientists work to disprove it, atheists scoff at it, yet none can fully explain the image. The truth is that no one knows how the Man was created, how He came to be on the fabric. Therein lies the mystery that may elude mankind for all time. Perhaps it is not meant to be understood, but rather to inspire thought, awareness, or understanding of what such a Man endured at the time of His death. To me, the Man in the cloth is Jesus, the Son of God, whose transformation scorched His face into the cloth creating an imprint that was meant to linger, inspire, and remind forever. It is a visible record of His human form, His injuries, a testament to and reminder of His divine suffering and how much this Man loved His people. Or, “he” is a divine forgery, an imprint of an all too-human human created by an artist or a charlatan, whose work baffles twenty-first century science. Perhaps the Spirit worked even in a forger, to create an earthly reminder of His time on earth.
“His newest book, The Wind and the Spirit (Stories of Faith and Inspiration)” was released in 2011 with all the author’s royalties go to support the Carmelite sisters.”