The Shroud Codex - Jerome R. Corsi [3]
“But you have a choice,” the wise man said seriously. “If you choose to return to earth and resume your life there, I will give you an important mission that I believe only you can accomplish. The mission is more important than I can explain to you. The future of human beings on earth hinges on whether you can manage to convey the message I will entrust to you to convey.”
“What message is that?” Bartholomew asked.
“It’s a message my son Jesus embedded in this burial cloth after his crucifixion,” the Ancient One explained. “The cloth is known as the Shroud of Turin. Even though the gospels of the New Testament tell the story of Jesus’ life and death, Jesus never wrote a book. The Shroud of Turin is his book, a codex in which a message for humanity was buried in the cloth, along with the body of my son. Deciphering that message for the world will be your mission if you choose to return to life.”
“I’m not sure I understand fully what you mean,” Bartholomew said with honest humility.
“I don’t expect you to understand now,” the Ancient One acknowledged. “But if you accept this mission, what you experience will bring forward to the world a new understanding of themselves and of the divine.”
Bartholomew felt torn. He had just been reunited with his mother and it pained him terribly to think he would be separated from her once again. He looked at his mother for advice. “I don’t want to leave you ever again,” he said from his heart.
“The choice is yours, son,” she said lovingly. “Either way, if you return to earth or choose to stay here, we will always be together.”
“If you do choose to return,” the Ancient One explained, “I will bring forth people to work with you, each selected for a particular reason. You will be given certain gifts that will bring to you the attention of the world. Your mother will return to be with you to help you accomplish your mission. Trust that I will enlighten those I send to you. To understand what is happening to you, it will be necessary to unravel the Shroud codex, the message I have imprinted into the burial cloth of my Son, waiting for the world to decipher.”
Bartholomew listened intently, not at all sure he comprehended what he was being told.
“If you choose to return to your life, you will be fulfilling the destiny for which you were created,” the Ancient one continued. “But you will not experience adulation or earthly riches. Instead, you will suffer much pain. You will be disbelieved, rejected, and scorned by Church authorities as well as millions of people who no longer believe in anything or anyone higher than themselves. But if you do return to earth, as I am asking you to do, what you do there will be written here with me in eternity.”
Bartholomew looked at his mother and their eyes met.
“What should I do, Mother?” he asked.
Right then, his mother took both his hands in hers and a brilliant flash of light surrounded them.
Bartholomew felt a surge of energy, as if he and his mother were being rushed through a warp in time to a distant dimension. Swirling around them was what seemed a blur of stars. He felt as if they were passing through distant galaxies on the way to what felt like another dimension.
Transported in space and time, Bartholomew looked around to find he was standing on a hill outside a city with his mother at his side. They were dressed in robes and wearing sandals. It felt like ancient times. He had no idea what had just happened.
“Where are we?” he asked his mother.
Looking around, he saw little that was familiar, but he thought the overall landscape looked like a place he had been in before. Then he recognized the cream-colored limestone that he knew to be distinct to Jerusalem.
He had visited the Holy Land twice and both times he had stayed at a hotel with a view of the walls of Jerusalem. He had loved watching the daylight from dawn to sunset as it delicately changed the limestone walls of the old city from a soft pale yellow at dawn to a rich red rose at sundown.
Just then he was startled to realize that he and his mother were standing outside the walls