There is no doubt that Easter is one of the only two most celebrated events on the Christian calendar globally. Easter, like Christmas, is the most highly anticipated Christian event where believers all over the world gather for conventions, festivals, revivals and programmes.
These events are organized for days and among many other things the objective is to stir up revivals, renewals, refreshing, and reflections. Such has been the case over the past centuries till now. Can you imagine the church without them? Because they have become the norm and the practice has gone on for centuries, we do them without questioning the fundamentals underlying such events or activities.
For instance, we know for a fact that the Lord Jesus Christ was not born on 25th December so why celebrate the birth of Jesus – Christmas on that day? The focus of this article though is on Easter and the need to reimagine the facts, the theology and the way forward.
My goal, I hope, is not to be controversial, heretic or unconventional, but if at all I am found guilty of any at the end then I guess it was my goal after all. Let’s set the stage now for the great question for which this solemn assembly has been called: did Jesus really die on a Friday?
Thank God for Friday but what if it was not a ‘‘Good Friday?’’ How did we arrive at Friday, and what significance (if any at all) does this particular day hold for the Easter event?
A BIBLICAL FOCUS
The Lord Jesus Himself speaking in Matthew 12:40 said, ‘‘For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.’’
This statement was made by Christ regarding His impending death and burial in the grave after which His eventual resurrection will follow miraculously.
Emphatically, Jesus meant that He, or rather, His dead body or corpse, would spend three days and three nights in the grave before the resurrection takes place. This is plainly stated in the verse mentioned and it is as simple as that. I don’t believe that you must be a theologian or need a seminary degree to figure out what the Master meant because it is the same three days and three nights in all the Bible versions that I have come across.
After the death of the Saviour on the cross, His lifeless body was buried in the tomb in the evening of the very same day which was the Jewish custom at the time (Matthew 27:57-60). The synoptic Gospels, church historians, Church Fathers and Bible scholars all agree on this fact. This would therefore mean that that was the first night the body of Jesus spent in the grave. This would make it the first night out of the three full nights that it was prophesied that the body of the Messiah would be in the grave.
The Body of Christ universally seems to believe and accept the claim that Jesus died on a Friday and resurrected early Sunday morning. However, if we are to do justice and crosscheck with the Scripture, this claim will easily be falsified.
Now, if we are to calculate and do the simple math, from Friday night to Sunday morning would not add up to the three days and three nights. Far from that, Friday night to Sunday morning will only sum up to two nights and not three, leaving out one night short.
Furthermore, this doesn’t add up to three days as Jesus stated in the aforementioned text in Matthew’s Gospel. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t even add up to two full days if that was the case. This is not rocket science and you don’t have to be a genius to do the simple math here.
So why should anyone have a problem with this? To answer this, thankfully the Bible is not just a spiritual book, and neither is it a work of fiction, but it is also a historical material, meaning that it can be fact-checked at any given time.
Obviously, this is not the first time someone is raising up this issue seeking for clarity and coherence according to the Scriptures. It would interest readers to know that renowned preachers or ministers like Benny Hinn, Rev. Dr. Chris Oyakhilome and Dr. Abel Damina just to mention a few, have in the past brought up this issue and offered reasonable corrections and sincere arguments to that effect as I am attempting to do here.
A NEW PERSPECTIVE AND A NEW LIGHT
I am hereby offering a new perspective which is not new in reality but should considered such in this context. A better understanding or a fresh approach to reconciling the day of Jesus’ death and burial with what the Scriptures say regarding the three days and three nights will be to consider Wednesday evening as the probable day. That is if we want to accept that the resurrection happened on a Sunday morning.
This is because from Wednesday evening to Sunday morning will make up for the full three days and three nights that Christ spent in the grave in order to fulfill all righteousness (Matthew 3:15).
A new light will also be to take into consideration the Jewish Sabbath day which is a day of rest for which no one is expected to do any kind of work.
According to the creation narrative in the book of Genesis, God rested on the seventh day which is the Jewish Sabbath and God further instituted that day as a day of rest for all generations to come.
Thus, the Jewish Sabbath which is Saturday in our Gregorian calendar being a day of rest would only mean that Christ would still have been resting peacefully in the grave until Sunday morning for His resurrection.
DOES IT REALLY MATTER?
Being someone who is interested in learning and exploring new insights about theology, history and culture in order to present holistic truth, I was curious about this subject matter some years ago when the same question was thrown at me as a young minister.
Of course, at the time I did not have sufficient answers or justification as to how the Lord Jesus could die on a Friday and resurrect on a Sunday morning which did not correlate with the three days and three nights as stated clearly in the Scriptures.
We must value knowledge, but more importantly sound or accurate knowledge. We must become like the believers of Berea in the days of the apostle Paul who were eagerly digging deeper in searching the truth of God’s Word.
Undoubtedly, I cannot change the status quo or the norm with regards to the ‘‘Good Friday,’’ something that has been believed and accepted for centuries by believers across board. No amount of articles I write, sermons I preach, or interviews granted would cause the global church or the Body of Christ to adjust their theology of the ‘‘Good Friday.’’
That notwithstanding however, I have attempted to help readers reimagine Easter in light of the ‘‘Good Friday.’’ The exact day of the week that the Lord Jesus died or resurrected is not as important as the fact that the event itself took place as prophesied in Scriptures.
There are historical, archaeological, scientific and many undeniable facts attesting to the veracity of the Easter event – the death, the burial and the resurrection of Christ.
You can reach out for further engagements or for feedback. Let us keep telling this wonderful story of the finished works of Christ! Christ has died! Christ has risen! Christ will come again! And together we will live and reign with Him forevermore!
Contact the Author:
Rev. Foster Toppar
Ph.D Student (Theology/Missiology)
Seoul Christian University, South Korea
topparfoster2018@gmail.com
Source: ghministers.net