relics

Date: 07 March 2012 01:56:34

Forty blogs of Lent

13

Cynical tourism

Last October my wife and I were in Bruge, or Bruges or Brugge on a short break. It is difficult to know which spelling to use. With only three days in the city we did the touristy things, we were, after all, tourists. One sight we took in was the Basilica of the Holy Blood, (or Basiliek van het Heilig Bloed in Flemish) a smallish church hidden away in the corner of one of the many squares in the city. It is more like two churches, the underchurch is simply decorated with a low vaulted ceiling and has a peaceful atmosphere. The upper church couldn't be more different. No surface has been left undecorated, including the widows, so the effect is enhanced by the multicoloured light that filters through the stained glass. And it has piped music. Choral music, interrupted by anouncements in many languages, can be heard at all times. Then there are the altars. One is covered in gold. The other, to one side, in silver. It is this silver one that is the more significant. It is the one that contains the relic. It is believed by some to be a piece of the cloth used to wipe up the blood of Christ by Joseph of Arimathea. Now I am sceptical about relics. Many churches in European Christianity had relics at this time, mostly of saints. Relics of saints are easy to find, Bones of a martyr are probably authentic too as the time gap between the death of the saint and the collection of the relic is relatively short. The tomb of St cuthbert in Durham Cathedral is a good example. Now I don't mind tombs and relics of saints, the stories of their lives and faith can be great encouragement in your own life as a believer. Relics of Christ, however, come into a different league. The problem of relics of Christ are something different. Christ ascended bodily into heaven so no part of his body were left on earth, with two exceptions. We are informed in Scripture that Jesus blood was shed on the cross, and that Jesus was circumcised at 8 days old. Now many churches have claimed to have the Holy Prepuse (or foreskin) often at the same time, the last remaining example being stolen in 1983, most of them were destroyed during the reformation or during the French Revolution. But why Jesus' foreskin would have been kept for the 30 years between his circumcision to the start of his ministry is beyond me. (The only thing I find more bizarre is that some churches claimed to have some of Mary's breast milk.) But back to Bruges and Basiliek van het Heilig Bloed. You may have gathered by now that I am abit of a cynic as far as the veneration of relics were concerned. But sitting in the church surrounded by the rich frescos and listening to the holy muzak I tried to put myself into the frame of mind of a 13th Century peasant. Almost certainly illiterate, but not unintelligent - how do you receive the message about what Christ achieved on the cross? Through preaching, but also, when the preacher is not there, you can see the story told in picture form. And that is what I saw around the walls of the Basilica. Pictures dealing with the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus. What we have in the Basiliek van het Heilig Bloed is a medieval evangelistic tool. And the blood of Jesus achieving salvation of mankind, but also each of us individually is central to the way I understand Christianity. If evangelicals did relics and iconography it would probably look something like this. Is it genuine? In John's Gospel we are told of the folded grave cloths that were found in the empty tomb, so although the final preparations of the body for burial had not been made it is clear that the preparations had been started. As it was Joseph of Arimathea's Tomb that Jesus was laid in, and that he was given the body, it is not too unreasonable that some clean up of the body had been started. A cloth with Christ's blood on it is likely to have existed. Do I think it is genuine? No, but the reality of the relic is not the point. Nevertheless, and despite the over-the-top decoration and the presence of muzak, I still found it a moving experience. My cynicism has been challenged.

-o0o-

Originally posted on 9 October 2011 on St Pixels blogs.