When was Jesus
Christ crucified and resurrected? Did He really die on Good Friday and come
back to life on Easter Sunday?
Jesus Christ said He would be in the grave for three days and three
nights. How can you count that from Good Friday afternoon to Easter Sunday
morning?
In Matthew 12:38 some
of the scribes and Pharisees asked Jesus for a sign to prove He was the
Messiah. But Jesus told them that the only sign He would give was that of the
prophet Jonah: "For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of
the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the
heart of the earth" (verse 40).But how can we fit "three days and
three nights" between a Friday-afternoon crucifixion and a Sunday-morning
resurrection? This traditional view allows for Jesus to have been entombed for
only a day and a half.
Some believe that Christ's "three days and three
nights" statement does not require a literal span of 72 hours, reasoning
that a part of a day can be reckoned as a whole day. Thus, since Jesus died in
the afternoon, they think the remainder of Friday constituted the first day,
Saturday the second and part of Sunday the third. However, only two
nights—Friday night and Saturday night—are accounted for in this explanation.
Something is obviously wrong with the traditional view regarding when Christ
was in the tomb.
Jonah 1:17 to
which Christ referred, states specifically that "Jonah was in the belly of
the fish three days and three nights." We have no basis for thinking that
Jesus meant only two nights and one day, plus parts of two days. If Jesus were
in the tomb only from late Friday afternoon to early Sunday morning, then the
sign He gave that He was the prophesied Messiah was not fulfilled. Let's
carefully examine the details from the Gospels. When we do, we uncover the real
story of how Jesus' words were fulfilled precisely.
Two Sabbaths mentioned
Notice the events outlined in Luke 23. Jesus' moment of
death, as well as His hasty burial because of the oncoming Sabbath that began
at sundown, is narrated in verses 46-53. Verse 54 then states, "That day
was the Preparation, and the Sabbath drew near."
Many
have assumed that it is the weekly Sabbath mentioned here, and that Jesus was
therefore crucified on a Friday. But John:19:31
shows that this approaching Sabbath "was a high day"—not the weekly
Sabbath (Friday sunset to Saturday sunset) but the first day of Unleavened
Bread, which is one of God's annual high, or Sabbath, days (Exodus:12:16-17
; Leviticus 23:6-7).
These annual Holy Days could—and usually did—fall on days of the week other
than the regular weekly Sabbath day.
This high-day Sabbath was Wednesday night and Thursday,
since Luke 23: Shows that the
women, after seeing Christ's body being laid in the tomb just before sunset,
"returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils" for the final
preparation of the body.
Such work would not have been done on a Sabbath day since it
would have been considered a violation of the Sabbath. This is verified by
Mark's account, which states, "Now when the Sabbath was past, Mary
Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices [which they would
not have purchased on the high-day Sabbath], that they might come and anoint Him"
(Mark 16:).
The women had to wait until this annual "high day"
Sabbath was over before they could buy and prepare the spices to be used for
anointing Jesus' body. Then, after purchasing and preparing the spices and oils
on Friday, "they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment"
(Luke 23:). This second Sabbath
mentioned in the Gospel accounts is the regular weekly Sabbath, observed from
Friday sunset to Saturday sunset.
By comparing details in both Gospels—where Mark tells us the
women bought spices after the Sabbath and Luke relates that they prepared the
spices before resting on the Sabbath—we can clearly see that two different
Sabbaths are mentioned. The first, as John 19:
Tells us, was a "high day"—the first day of the Feast of Unleavened
Bread—which, in A.D. 31, fell on a Thursday. The second was the weekly
seventh-day Sabbath.
Sign of the Messiah
After the women rested on the regular weekly Sabbath, they
went to Jesus' tomb early on the first day of the week (Sunday), "while it
was still dark" (John 20:),
and found that He had already been resurrected (Matthew:28:1; Mark 16:2-6;
Luke:24:1-3).
When we consider the details in all four Gospel accounts,
the picture is clear. Jesus was crucified and entombed late on Wednesday
afternoon, just before a Sabbath began at sunset. However, that was a high-day
Sabbath, lasting from Wednesday sunset to Thursday sunset that week, rather
than the regular weekly Sabbath, lasting from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset.
He remained in the tomb from Wednesday at sunset until
Saturday at sunset, when He rose from the dead. While no one witnessed His
resurrection (which took place inside a sealed tomb), it had to have happened
near sunset on Saturday, three days and three nights after His body was
entombed. It could not have happened on Sunday morning, because when Mary Magdalene
came to the tomb that morning before sunrise, "while it was still
dark," she found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty.
We can be assured that the length of His entombment that
Jesus gave as proof He was the Messiah was exactly as long as He foretold.
Jesus rose precisely three days and three nights after He was placed in the
tomb.
Because most people do not understand the biblical high days
Jesus Christ and His followers kept, they fail to understand the chronological
details so accurately preserved for us in the Gospels.
courtesy: United Church of God
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