👉🏽👉🏽👉🏽How Did Our #Lord #Jesus Christ Remain for #Three #Days and #Three #Nights in the #Tomb?
Beloved brethren in Christ,
Peace be unto you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us lift our minds to the heavenly realm and bow our hearts before the divine mystery that lies at the very core of our salvation: the burial and resurrection of our Lord. For today, we ponder deeply the question many have asked and few have truly understood: How did our Lord Jesus Christ remain in the grave for three days and three nights, as He Himself foretold?
Let us approach this not with idle curiosity but with reverent awe, for in this contemplation lies the key to the gates of Hades being shattered and to eternal life being ushered in.
I. The Hebrew Understanding of Time: The Key to the Mystery
First, dear faithful, we must cleanse our minds from modern reckonings of time, which often obscure rather than illuminate the Scriptures. The sacred tradition and counting of days among the Hebrews is not like ours.
In our lands and in the West, we count from midnight to midnight, and we divide the day into clean segments. But the Hebrews, God’s chosen people, to whom the oracles of God were first entrusted, began their day at evening just as Genesis tells us: “And the evening and the morning were the first day.” (Genesis 1:5)
Thus, a Hebrew day begins at 11:00 PM Ethiopian time (5:00 PM European/American time). From that moment onward, the next twenty-four hours are reckoned as a full day comprising both a day and a night.
Hence, to the Hebrews:
Any portion of a day, even a single hour, is counted as a full day and night.
Just as one born on a Sunday at any hour is considered born on that day, and one who dies in the same way is said to have died on that day.
This divine way of counting holds the key to unlocking the mystery of our Lord's stay in the tomb.
II. The Lord’s Burial: Fulfilling the Prophecy to the Letter
The Holy Gospels tell us that our Lord was crucified and died on Friday afternoon. Yet Friday, to the Hebrews, began at what we call Thursday night at 11:00 PM.
Thus, our Lord was buried before the Sabbath began, meaning He was buried within the day of Friday by Hebrew reckoning. Let us now trace the sacred chronology:
1. Friday (Day One):
From Thursday 11:00 PM to Friday 11:00 PM our Lord was buried before the Sabbath began, and thus this counts as one full day and night.
2. Saturday (Day Two):
From Friday 11:00 PM to Saturday 11:00 PM this is the second full day and night, as His body remained in the tomb throughout the Sabbath.
3. Sunday (Day Three):
From Saturday 11:00 PM to Sunday 11:00 PM although He rose early on Sunday, even this portion counts as the third day and night in the Hebrew understanding.
Thus, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are three days and three nights not by the limited logic of man, but by the sacred tradition of the people of God.
III. The Lord’s Descent: A Mystery of Divine Victory
Now, let us not be content with the external chronology alone. For the mystery deepens. Not only did our Lord’s body lie in the tomb His soul, united to the divine nature, descended into Sheol, the place of the dead.
He who is life itself entered into death, not as a prisoner, but as a conqueror. As it is written:
"You will not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor will you let your Holy One see corruption." (Psalm 15:10)
Here the Prophet David, enlightened by the Spirit, foretold that Christ's body would not decay, and His soul would not remain among the dead.
The apostle Peter, in holy agreement, proclaims:
"Christ died once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God. He was put to death in the flesh but made alive in the Spirit, in which He went and preached to the spirits in prison." (1 Peter 3:18–19)
He preached not as one needing to be freed, but as the Liberator, offering salvation to those who had died in hope.
Continues 👇🏽