Yes, I agree. The Shroud is indeed a miracle and it is indeed explained away. There is the difference between that type of miracle and the one I am suggesting. The type of miracle I am suggesting leaves absolutely no room for an alternate explanation. For example, if the astronomers would see the stars suddenly leave their orbits and begin to spell out biblical messages in English, what other explanation could there be but God? Or if several miracles are announced via TV interference to be scheduled to occur by the voice of God and they happening schedule, let's say the submergence of Australia under two feet of water for a few minutes, and other such phenomenon, then the conclusions inevitable. Better still, Were He to suddenly send one of his angels to the United Nations to appear and address the assembly in his name. That too would be irrefutable Or if he Himself would suddenly display a representation of his heaven to astronomers similar to what is described in Revelation along with a message to SETI stating that it is HE woo is responsible. That also would be irrefutable.
There are many, many ways that he could make Himself directly known which are far more convincing than text or the Shroud. Not to say that the Shroud is unconvincing. I find it very compelling. Only to say that there are far more DIRECT ways to put the question of his nonexistence to rest conclusively. What mankind does AFTER such a demonstration is provided is entirely up to mankind.
Sure, he could do that. He could discombobulate all that he has set up to make such a sign. But he doesn't. From talking to him, I have an inkling why. It's kind of harsh, but it's true. Why bother? We think of ourselves as special snowflakes that God tenderly loves. In a sense that's true. We're each unique. But snowflakes melt in a twinkling of an eye. God has already picked out the particular horrible death each of us will suffer. For some, it will be a sudden, massive chest clutcher. Others will feel our minds go slushy and be unable to talk. Some of us will hack ourselves to death as our lungs turn black with tumors. Others will desperately claw for a breath in our sinking cars. Some of us will burn alive in a house fire. Others will be crushed by a bus. Still others will suffocate in mudslides. Others still will face the horror of the killer stabbing us over and over and over and over in the dark. Every one of us has a painful and horrible death awaiting us, a death that God already knows, and indeed that God has destined us for.
When you remember that, your lofty view of the tenderness of God should drop to the ground with a thud. God loves you, in a very real sense, like a farmer loves a farm animal. He takes care of each of us, in his way, until he slaughters us - he already knows the manner of each of our slaughter, and he will not stay his hand no matter how much we pray, love him earnestly ask him to. Our Father in Heaven is a Father who kills each and every one of his children in time. Never forget that.
And when you think about that, you realize pretty suddenly why he doesn't go out of his way to move the stars to persuade us of anything. He has already set before us a dark and terrifying, and painful death, the certitude of which always lingers in our minds.
We are his sons and daughters. Each of us was breathed out by him. He has one son that was closer to him than all others - he didn't just breathe him out but actually fathered him biologically and gave him everything. And look at the horrible, prolonged, agonizing death he made HIM go through. And then, for good measure, 11 of 12 of his son's closest friends, who followed him to the end - all but one - was each in his own turn slaughtered - generally tortured to death on account of Jesus.
God really does not care all that much about our suffering, truth be told. We are effectively 6 billion maggots wriggling and twisting away our short time on the surface of the planet, all doomed to die, along with the billions of actual fly maggots, whose physical structures are different but who were ALSO breathed out by God, and who also live but a short time and then perish in various generally hideous ways.
Death is a black maw that devours all, soon. God merely gives us the gift, perhaps unlike the animals, to know of death, to know that it is approaching, to know that it is inevitable.
And he gives us one chance, essentially, to be acceptable to him. We can trust him, that he really DOES love us and that things will go well for us beyond the black maw of death. In which case we're sort of a pet that is allowed to live and given a place near the Master in his garden, and then eventually in his city. Or we can doubt, be unable to believe and trust, hold back, and essentially refuse the leash. In which case he has no further time or use for us, simply finds us worthless trash, and throws us into the fire to be burnt up, like some runt of the litter on the farm that's useless, so the farmer just crushes its head.
In this sense - a very real since - the black curtain of death is the implacable miracle that forces each of us to face God, on HIS terms, never (ever) on ours. He doesn't move the stars for us because he doesn't frankly CARE all that much about us. We're not important. He's the creator and Master, of maggots and men. We think more highly of ourselves than we do of maggots, and God does too, to a degree. He kills men and maggots alike, but the way that he shows favor to men is by letting us know of death, and contemplate it all of our lives, know it is coming, fear it. And he tells us, with words only, and with a few simply throwaways like the Shroud, what's on the other side.
And that's as far as he cares. Millions or billions of us will take him up on his offer, trust him, if only out of fear and hope, and have a shot at better. The rest won't. They die along with the rest of us, but they just get thrown on the rubbish heat to be burnt with the rest of the trash.
So what is the miracle that God shows us? The knowledge of our death, and the knowledge that there's something beyond it. Those who take the knowledge and do something with it get to go on, which is great for us, and God loves us enough to have given us that to look forward to. But God doesn't love us more than that. Don't take up that miracle and ponder it and take a chance on hope that there's something beyond that black curtain...well...there still is something beyond that black curtain, and you're not going to like what's on the other side any better than you will like the death you'll experience on this side in order to pass through it.
In a very real sense God's sense of miracle for us is rather grim. Remember what he did to Jesus. And realize that we're just not all that important. That we were given any hope at all is barely enough. Most of us are never getting any more than that. Because there are billions of us, and individually we're just simply not all that important.
God knows we want more, to be sure. And he doesn't care. He's given what he's given, he's not giving any more. There are two things on the menu: take it, or leave it. He does care, but barely. He doesn't sob when a human walks away from him, he just makes billions more and, when he kills that particular human, tosses him on the trash pile. The potter makes porcelain plates, but he also makes chamber pots. He lets you choose what you're going to be - he gives that much. But he doesn't work hard to help us decide, because individually, we're not important enough to move the stars for. We mistakenly think we are.
