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lundi 4 novembre 2013

How Sightings Of Jesus Can Strengthen Faith

By Alyce Powell


Throughout the history of religion, people have wanted concrete evidence to strengthen their faith. In some religions this is easier. For instance, a shaman can go into a spiritual trance and see an animal spirit or the spirits of the ancestors. In a religion like Christianity, however, it is highly unusual to see the object of worship, since the Christian God is invisible. Sightings of Jesus, for example, tend to be controversial and not everyone believes that these visions were real. Those who had the visions, however, often have renewed faith afterwards.

Christianity is built on the premise that the Son of God was sent to Earth to live as a human, was crucified and then rose from the dead. After He was buried, some of his followers visited the tomb only to find that it was empty. Christ then appeared to people like the disciples and Mary Magdalene, showing that He had been resurrected.

In the early days of Christianity, several people who had been worshiping other gods had visions of Christ and then converted to Christianity. They include Saul of Tarsus, who was notorious at the time for persecuting the followers of Jesus. After the Son of God appeared to him, he converted and became known as the Apostle Paul, who eventually died for his beliefs.

Some theologians believe that Christ had appeared to people long before He had walked the Earth. For example, it has been suggested that the angel that Jacob wrestled in the Old Testament was in fact the Son of God. Another possible vision of Jesus is the fourth man who was seen in the furnace with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and prevented them from being burnt.

The Catholic Church believed in some of the visions of Christ and the people who had these visions were sainted. It's also in the Catholic Cathedral of Turin that a very famous object bearing the image of Jesus is displayed. The Shroud of Turin is believed to be the one that Christ's body was wrapped in since it shows markings that look like the body of a man who died on a cross.

These days there are many supposed sightings of Christ. His image is often found in everyday objects. In fact, everything from grilled cheese sandwiches to X-rays have borne images that could be interpreted as looking like Jesus.

Today more and more mobile phones are able to record videos. Because of this, there are now several video recordings of Christ sightings when people happened to have their phones ready and on the video setting. Some of these are available for viewing online.

Many people, whether they're religious or not, don't believe that sightings of Jesus are really authentic. They say that if you really want to see Christ's image in a burn mark on a tortilla, you will, just like you would see a bunny if that was what you wanted to see. For the believers, though, these images have had great power to help them have stronger faith and some even say that they became Christians because of these visions.




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