3 Days in the Tomb
Jesus comes out of the tomb on the 3rd day. Who else will do that and when?
The most famous, and certainly the most important, 3 days that Jesus spent while here on earth was the 3 days he spent in the tomb.
The story goes like this: He was born in Bethlehem a son of an unknown family, and lived a life of obscurity until he was "about 30 years old"(Luke 3:23) when he began his public ministry. This ministry lasted about one year after which he made the most important journey to Jerusalem. At Jerusalem, after that year of public ministry, Jesus was arrested and put on trial for trumped up charges. On the authority of both the Jewish and Roman rulers of the time Jesus was sentenced to death, death on a cross.
On Thursday of Passion Week, the day before a special Friday Sabbath, Jesus was hung on a cross, and by late Thursday afternoon he had died. His body was quickly put in a tomb, the coming sunset and start of the Special Sabbath(John 19:31) were motives to hurry this along.
By Sunday morning the women went to the tomb to anoint his body" count=" but, rather than finding it, they found the tomb was empty and he was gone. An angel announced to them that Jesus had risen, and that he would go ahead of his disciples to Galilee.
This stunned everyone, since nobody realized this was what he had talked about repeatedly during his public ministry.
The meaning of what had happened would take more time to develop. Jesus had just substituted his life for all of ours. He had also just demonstrated that there is indeed life after death, a life which will not end. A life which he was demonstrating as the first to attain, and one which he would offer to all who would just believe.
When would he raise the dead to life? Like the story of Lazarus, that event would be 2000 years later, but there was a clue in the time Jesus spent in the tomb which also pointed at this same point in time.
"Remember this dear friends, with God 1 day is like 1000 years, 1000 years are like 1 day."(2 Pet 3:8) Jesus spent 3 days in the tomb. A couple hours before sunset on Thursday, almost to little to count, all of Friday, all of Saturday, and the part of Sunday before the sun rose.
Jesus appears to have spent as little time as the 3 day requirement would allow, having been raised to life some time before the women showed up on Sunday morning. With the rest of us it will be the same way. 3 days in the tomb, or using Peter’s ratio... 3000 years. But like the time of Jesus in the tomb, will it be cut short? As short as possible? If so, how short? Just over 2000 years meets the requirement of following Jesus’ 3 days in the tomb. Day 1 and day 2 being the years through the 2000th anniversary of Jesus’ own visit to earth.
Are we there yet? Yes, or nearly so. Unlike the other stories in this section of the site we should take the dates of Jesus’ own time in the tomb as the marker. He was raised from the dead on Sunday, March 25, 31 AD. The 2000th anniversary of this event, on the biblical 30 day/month calendar, hits October 19, 2028. Nearly 20 years after the probable return date of Jesus to earth. This is in the time when Jesus will be raising the dead of Adam’s race to life.
Revelation explains that this period of raising the dead to life will take 12 years.(Rev 22:2) The story we have recounted here does not place this 12 years relative to our indicated date. When we have developed the story completely, it appears that this 12 year interval is almost over by the time October 2028 roles around.