33. CHRIST'S GRAVE CLOTHES

CHRIST’S GRAVE CLOTHES

By Irene Belyeu

At Easter time each year there arises the discussion about the “Shroud of Turin” which some believe was the shroud that was wrapped around Jesus when He was buried. According to the Scriptural account, this cannot be true.

We learn from the account of the raising of Lazarus from the dead that his grave clothes bound him hand and foot and that the “napkin” around his face was separate from the other clothes, John 11:44.  It seems reasonable to believe that his grave clothes were according to the Jewish customs of that day.

Now, in John 19:38-40 we look at the way Christ’s body was buried:

“And after this Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore and took the body of Jesus.

“And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.

“Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.”

We learn from this that the cloths were soaked in “a hundred pound weight” of the spices and wound about His body. To have “wound” it around His body, the cloth would have had to be in strips, “as the manner of the Jews is to bury.” As this preparation hardened it formed a cast-like shell, similar to what we understand of the grave clothes of Lazarus. We know that Lazarus was bound by it until someone had to loose him.

What did Peter and John see when they came to the tomb after Jesus had risen?

“Peter therefore went forth, and that other disciple, and came to the sepulchre. So they ran both together: and the other disciple did outrun Peter, and came first to the sepulchre.

“And he stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in.

“Then cometh Simon Peter following him, and went into the sepulchre, and seeth the linen clothes lie, and the napkin, that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself.

“Then went in also that other disciple, which came first to the sepulchre, and he saw, and believed.” –John 20:3-8.

Why did they believe when they saw the grave clothes? I believe it was because the shell-like cast had not been broken open, but the body had come out of it and left it intact but empty, not like Lazarus whose cast had to be taken off him before he was loose. Jesus resurrection body went through the cast and was free and loose. The cast which had been about his head was also intact and empty, separated from the body-cast and lying by itself without being broken open. This was what convinced these disciples that Christ was risen indeed!

There was no sheet-like “shroud” like the so-called “Shroud of Turin” at the tomb that morning.