Easter By The Numbers

There is above the Falls of Niagara a rock jutting out into the river, which bears the significant name of Past Redemption Point. At that place the current becomes so rapid and overpowering that all hope of swimming or rowing against it has to be abandoned. The man who drifts past it is lost.

Now, three days would appear to be the Past Redemption Point of human conceptions in regard to the body and death. It is the period: after which hopelessness and despair reign. There is no possibility of undoing the dread fact. The one we love is gone forever—so it was so reasoned.

But the Resurrection on the Third Day is God's reply to it.

He neither endorses nor refutes man's fancy in regard to it, but He overrides it, and undercuts it, and triumphantly brings back His Son in the face of hopeless human despondency and pessimism.1

1 Corinthians 15:4 says, “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”

This verse reads very much like an early creed: “I believe,” that ‘on the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures.”

This shows that the church of the very beginning understood the resurrection of Jesus from the dead as the resurrection of the crucified and buried body of Jesus.

Paul the Apostle says this was passed on to him orally in tradition (paredoka = “I delivered”; parelabon = “I received”) 1 Corinthians 15:1-8. (2)

3 days is the only pattern of which eternal life is given.

The Trinitarian formula.

The sign of Jonah. Jonah was in the Belly of the beast for three days. (Jonah 1:17, Matthew 12).

Speaking of the three-day pattern:

Barbara Brokhoff shares the story of a man walking down the street, and passing a lady who sold flowers. She was old and wrinkled, but her face was alive with joy. As he stopped to buy a flower, the man said, "You certainly look happy this morning." She responded, cheerily, "Why not? Everything is good." The man noticed how shabbily she was dressed, knew she must be very poor, noted how frail she seemed, so he said, "I only meant that you wear your troubles well." She said, "Let me tell you how I do it. When Jesus was crucified on Good Friday that was the worst day for the whole world. Then, three days later - Easter - he rose again. So, when I get troubles, I've learned to wait three days. Somehow everything gets all right again." Later, the man said, "She smiled at me as she waved good-bye. Her words still follow me whenever I think I have troubles. I 'wait three days.'” 3

“To die and thus to become” the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said and basic Christian doctrine agrees that “to die” is thus “to become” because the soul is immortal. After death, a person will live forever- the question is where?

Today on Easter Sunday, the decision is whether to have eternal life or not? On this day of salvation, choose to believe that God sent his Jesus to suffer and die on the Cross in expiation of all sin and was raised on the Third day.

A Sinners Prayer

“Loving God, take pity on me, a sinner. I believe in You and that Your word is true. Father, I accept that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Mighty God and that he died on the cross so that I may now have forgiveness for my sins and eternal life.

2). First is the ordinal of Easter proclaimed in the narrative formula, "the first day of the week." Mark 16:9 (See also Luke 24:1 and John 20:1).

The discovery of the empty tomb was made on the first day of the week which is the very day of the Resurrection of Jesus, known as the Lord's Day or Sunday.

Most cave-tombs in and around Jerusalem are sealed with square or rectangular stones; only four of the more than 900 so far discovered are sealed with circular stones, and these tombs belonged to prominent people. These 500 lbs. stones are cut to size and secured in place by mechanical levers that completely seal the transverse channels.

When the sabbath was over which is Saturday, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go and anoint the body of Jesus [not knowing how or who would remove the stone]. Very early when the sun had risen, on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb.

They were saying to one another, “Who will roll back the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” (Mark 16:1-3).