Larry A. Smail's Blog

Key to Understanding The “Crucifixion through Resurrection” Chart (Chart below)

By Larry A. Smail

Sometime during my teen years, I found myself beginning to question many things of life. Traditions in the church were not without being scrutinized by my thoughts. However, I kept such thoughts to myself for I believed I must not be “Christian-enough” to understand such things. Asking, or mentioning my thoughts, to anyone would make me appear stupid. However, with time and study, I began to rethink various issues. One such event was how to get three days and three nights from a late Friday afternoon death on the cross to a Sunday morning resurrection. What was I missing? This chart and these notes, although confusing, hopefully will share some insights to the most important event of scripture…the resurrection!

1. Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread always begins on the fourteenth day of the first month of the Jewish calendar known as Nisan. (Nissan) Passover begins at sunset which is the actual  beginning of the Jewish day period. This was mandated by the Lord through Moses. (See Exodus 12 and Leviticus 23: 4-7… for all details.) This month’s timing, and these holy days, always occur sometime within our months of March and April depending on the year and celestial cycles. (One may find words of using the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread interchangeably at times.)

2. The Feast of Unleavened Bread is a seven-day event mandated by the Lord to the Jewish people. Passover meal always occurs after sunset on the 14^th day of Nisan. This event is followed on the fifteenth day  at sunset with a Holy Convocation or Special Holy Sabbath. This Holy Sabbath marks the beginning of the week of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. (A second Holy Sabbath occurs on the seventh day of this week or the twenty-first day of the month.)

3. IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER… These Holy Sabbaths can occur on ANY DAY of a month. The weekly sabbaths always begin at sunset on our Friday through our Saturday at sunset. Using our present way of determining individual days this timing is actually the Jewish Saturday. In other words, the Jewish seventh day, or Saturday, begins on our Friday evening. (I hope this is not confusing.)

4. The Last Supper was part of the Passover/ Unleavened Bread event. Remember, Passover was mandated by the Lord to the Jewish people. Christ, being a law-keeping Jew, observed this event. One example is found in Matthew 26: 2 where Christ said he would be crucified after the Passover. (Also. See Matthew 26: 17-19, Mark 14: 1-2; Luke 22: 1, 7-13…) This Passover is known as Christ’s Last Supper or as Christ’s Last Passover.

5. The Jewish day begins at sunset whereas “our” 24-hour day begins at midnight. Those dark hours are known as the WATCH and the daylight hours are known as the DAY. However, those entire sunset to sunset hours are still known as a DAY. (Yom is the Hebrew word used for DAY.)

NOTE: With our timing we have a 24-hour day, however, under Jewish timing a day has variable hours or, no fixed length. An hour in Jewish timing is 1/12 of all the hours of any given complete day cycle and, obviously, that timing changes with each day and the seasons. Confused yet?

6. Jewish Sabbaths, as stated, begin at sunset, and completes the following sunset. (For the sake of chart simplicity, we will assume the sunset at this time of the year was approximately around 6:00 P.M. Remember, we are in the very early springtime. To further complicate this is an interesting fact of Jewish time. The “true” sunset begins when three medium light stars are visible in the early night sky.)

7. The Jewish Day of Preparation occurs during the daylight hours. During this time, all preparational requirements for the weekly or holy sabbaths are completed preparing for the beginning of any sabbath at sunset. (Got it?) All cooking is prepared on this day since cooking is work and there is to be no work on the sabbath. The women, also, would have needed to prepare any spices, and such, for burial treatment of the body of Christ on the day prior to the sunset sabbath, as well. Remember Christ was hastily buried to beat the soon coming sunset marking a Special Holy Sabbath or Convocation. (See John 19: 31.)

8. The women discovered very early on the FIRST DAY of the week, or Sunday, the stone had been rolled away and the body was gone. SCRIPTURE DOES NOT STATE CHRIST WAS RESURRECTED ON SUNDAY MORNING ONLY THAT THE WOMEN WENT TO THE TOMB EARLY ON THAT DAY! (See Luke 24, John 20…Also, remember their first day of the week actually began immediately after sunset. More Confused?)

IMPORTANT DETAIL INFORMATION

9. IMPORTANT! Jesus had told the Pharisees when they demanded a sign as to who he was, and he responded with some interesting words found in Matthew 12: 38-41, Matthew 16: 4 and Luke 11: 29-31. Christ said the only sign to be given as to whom he was would be the SIGN OF JONAH. 

Christ said:

AS JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE FISH, THE SON OF MAN WILL BE THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE HEART OF THE EARTH.

 Jesus’ body would spend three days and three nights in the grave to fulfill his own words of prophecy.

10. What was, and is, the importance of Jesus’ dead body in the grave for three days and three nights?

The answer is simple:

TO PROVE TO THE WORLD HE WAS , INDEED, DEAD!!!

The plan for resurrection means little if Jesus had not died on the cross and spent those three days and three nights in the grave. Skeptics or atheists have tried, even using the three days and three nights in the tomb, to state he was not truly dead. Imagine if Christ would have risen on the first or second of those days. Others state the Jews counted even an hour, of a day, as one day. This false way of thinking could mean the few hours from Christ’s death, removal from the cross and burial would be considered a day. Even with using this theory one cannot get three days and three nights. I believe sometime in the far past some person of power used the Jewish “weekly sabbath” instead of the Holy Sabbath thus, immediately, determined the wrong timing. However, their timing theory quickly developed into the Friday cross and Sunday morning resurrection believed by the masses today.

So, using all the information above concerning Jewish timings, Passover, and Unleavened Bread event details, understanding the Holy Sabbaths compared with the weekly sabbaths and utilizing all details given by scripture, Christ would have needed to have been on the cross and died and buried  on the 14^th day or our Wednesday. And then calculating times and dates to allow for three days and three nights, Christ would have been resurrected around or after sunset on our Saturday evening to fulfill his own prophecy. Hopefully, my chart will help show this timing.