A Third-Day Perspective
I grew up in a church with a tradition of reciting the Apostle’s Creed during Sunday worship services. So from the time I could form words, I was repeating that statement of belief. Of course, I didn’t fully understand what it meant, but I could recount every syllable. Can you?
Contrary to my kids’ thinking, I wasn’t there when they wrote the Apostle’s Creed. It dates to within about 500 years of the original New Testament manuscripts. The Apostles didn’t write it, but it has its roots in apostolic times. It is the oldest Christian creed. It mainly summarizes the life of Christ, culminating in His sitting at “the right hand of the Father” and the impending judgment of “the quick (or living) and the dead.”
Mechanical repetition of that classic teaching’s words could lead one to take its monumental meaning and depth of importance for granted. Many people from mainline, more liturgical denominations know the words well, but don’t necessarily live lives affected by their significance. Nearly as unfortunate is that few people raised in evangelical churches can quote the Apostle’s Creed.
Contemporary worship has thrown out our traditional creeds and most of the liturgy from the past. As a result, many miss the impact of weekly repetition of words like, “The third day He rose again from the dead.” That phrase had become an indelible part of my psyche. I can’t remember ever doubting the fact that Jesus rose from the dead on the third day.
However, though the creed states that He rose “the third day,” I never considered the significance of mentioning the time involved. The critical part seemed to be that He died and rose again. So what difference did it make that it happened on the third day or a nanosecond after He died? Well, Jesus always had perfect timing, so He must have had a reason for waiting, right?
Imagine what happened between the first Good Friday and the first Easter morning. What transpired on Friday was far from “good” to those who had put their hope in the One they believed was their Messiah. Several of them had dedicated three full years of their lives to their now-deceased Christ. They certainly didn’t react as though it was a good day while anticipating the next great event.
Hindsight makes the accomplishment of Good Friday unquestionably good to us now. However, His disciples hadn’t grasped Good Friday’s goodness yet. Their actions demonstrate quite the opposite, even immediately following His resurrection.
For example, take that day He appeared (unrecognized) to two of his followers on the road to Emmaus. Describing the weekend’s events, they didn’t explain to Him the good work of a Redeemer dying for their sins or a Savior, risen victoriously from the grave. Instead, they expressed doubt and confusion. So Jesus rightly said they were “foolish men and slow of heart to believe...” (Luke 24:25). I imagine He might say the same of me at times.
Perhaps part of what Jesus wanted to convey by waiting to rise until the third day was that between the tragedy and the triumph, there is hope. Maybe the timing teaches us that unless we approach the in-between time with confidence in Him to bring about a miracle and fulfill His promises, we will default to fear, disappointment, confusion, and even sheer horror. In so doing, like the Emmaus travelers, we demonstrate a slowness to believe.
So, a view from the third day gives us perspective. What happened on the third day completely undoes anything negative about Friday. The suffering and circumstances only seen as bad can now be seen as “good.” Of course, it doesn’t erase the pain and suffering or dying, but those things lose; they are defeated by the transforming, assuring power guaranteed by the Resurrection. Life came out of death.
“He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.” —Acts 1:3