Arose on The Third Day ! Yeshua Ha Mashiach
| April 17, 2022 The Resurrection and the Believer “And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.” (Colossians 1:18)The resurrection of Christ is no less crucial to the gospel than the death of Christ. If He did not rise from the dead, then we who believe in Him “are of all men most miserable” (1 Corinthians 15:19).Christ’s resurrection assures us, first of all, of our justification. Speaking of Abraham’s faith and the imputation of God’s righteousness to him, Paul writes, “For us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification” (Romans 4:24-25).God imparts to us the power to serve Him effectively through the resurrection, “that [we] may know…what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead” (Ephesians 1:18-20). As the passage continues, Paul declares that through the resurrection Christ is now “the head over all things to the church, which is His body” (vv. 22-23 and also in our text).In His resurrected and glorified state, Christ continues His ministry to us. “Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens….Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:14, 16).Finally, Christ’s resurrection assures us that we too will one day be resurrected, if we should die before He returns. “He which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus” (2 Corinthians 4:14). JDM |
Question: On what day did Christ rise from the dead?
Answer: Christ rose from the dead, glorious and immortal, on Easter Sunday, the third day after His death.
Simple, right? Jesus rose from the dead on Easter. But why do we call the day Christ rose from the dead Easter when exactly is Easter, and what does it mean to say that it’s “the third day after His death”?
Why Easter?
The word Easter comes from Eastre, the Anglo-Saxon word for the Teutonic goddess of spring. As Christianity spread to the Northern tribes of Europe, the fact that the Church celebrated Christ’s Resurrection in the early spring led to the word for the season being applied to the greatest of holidays. (In the Eastern Church, where the influence of Germanic tribes was very minor, the day of Christ’s Resurrection is called Pascha, after the Pasch or Passover.)
When Is Easter?
Is Easter a specific day, like New Year’s Day or the Fourth of July? The first clue comes in the fact that the Baltimore Catechism refers to Easter Sunday. As we know, January 1 and July 4 (and Christmas, December 25) can fall on any day of the week. But Easter always falls on a Sunday, which tells us that there’s something special about it.
Easter is always celebrated on a Sunday because Jesus rose from the dead on a Sunday. But why not celebrate His Resurrection on the anniversary of the date on which it occurred—much like we always celebrate our birthdays on the same date, rather than the same day of the week?
This question was a source of much controversy in the early Church. Most Christians in the East actually did celebrate Easter on the same date every year—the 14th day of Nisan, the first month in the Jewish religious calendar. In Rome, however, the symbolism of the day on which Christ rose from the dead was seen as more important than the actual date. Sunday was the first day of Creation; and Christ’s Resurrection was the beginning of the new Creation—the remaking of the world that had been damaged by the original sin of Adam and Eve.
So the Roman Church, and the Church in the West, in general, celebrated Easter on the first Sunday following the paschal full moon, which is the full moon that falls on or after the vernal (spring) equinox. (At the time of Jesus’ death and Resurrection, the 14th day of Nisan was the paschal full moon.) At the Council of Nicaea in 325, the entire Church adopted this formula, which is why Easter always falls on a Sunday, and why the date changes every year.
How Is Easter the Third Day After Jesus’ Death?
There’s still one odd thing, though—if Jesus died on a Friday and rose from the dead on a Sunday, how is Easter the third day after His death? Sunday is only two days after Friday, right?
Well, yes and no. Today, we generally count our days that way. But that wasn’t always the case (and still isn’t, in some cultures). The Church continues the older tradition in Her liturgical calendar. We say, for instance, that Pentecost is 50 days after Easter, even though it is the seventh Sunday after Easter Sunday, and seven times seven is only 49. We get to 50 by including Easter itself. In the same way, when we say that Christ “rose again on the third day,” we include Good Friday (the day of His death) as the first day, so Holy Saturday is the second, and Easter Sunday—the day Jesus rose from the dead—is the third.