As we saw last week, the term “on the third day” has a significant footprint in the scriptures… showing up at least 26 times (if I counted correctly) in the Old Testament!… and that doesn’t count the many times we read various phrases that include the words “three” and “days” together. These are what Dr. Tim Mackie from the Bible Project calls Biblical hyperlinks. When specific words or phrases appear in the Biblical narrative they are often connected. The author uses words to link different passages together. It’s a way of seeing the interconnectedness of Scripture. The prophets did this a lot in their writing, usually linking back to passages in the Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible, to make their point. So tracing a phrase such as “on the third day” helps us to see what the Bible, as a whole, is trying to say.
Last week we looked at the Old Testament. This week we’ll trace where we find the phrase, “on the third day” in the New Testament. So I want you to think… other than the time Jesus talks about dying and being raised up on the third day, where does this phrase show up? What stories about the life of Jesus is this phrase attached to? Can you think of any?
I’m certain that you’ve read the stories we’re going to look at many times, but I suspect you haven’t noticed that the phrase “the third day” was in any way connected to these stories.
So, here’s the first story…
When Jesus was 12 He went to Jerusalem with His parents for the Passover Feast. When the Feast was over they headed home with a large contingent from the Galilee area. Mary and Joseph assumed Jesus was traveling with the company, surrounded by cousins and neighbours, but after not finding him with friends or family they nervously turned back to Jerusalem to find Him. Then we read:
Luke 2:46-49
On the third day they found Him in the Temple sitting among the Rabbis, both listening to them and asking them questions, while all who heard Him were astonished at His intelligence and at the answers He gave. When they saw Him, they were smitten with amazement, and His mother said to Him, “My child, why have you behaved this way to us? Your father and I have been searching for you in anguish.” “Why is it that you have been searching for me? Did you not know that I must be…”
WHERE?… In My Father’s House, right? Or is it?
Now, we’re going to go into the weeds with this one, but I’m pretty sure you can handle it. So we’re going to look at a few different translations of Luke 2:49. Starting with th e NIV:
“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”
Most translations have Jesus saying something along these lines… I had to be in My Father’s House… but in Greek, the word house is not there. The New King James Version says:
“Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father’s business?”
Sounds good, but, guess what? The word business isn’t there!The New Heart English Bible says:
“Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be doing the works of my Father?”
Sounds good, but guess what? The word “works” isn’t there!
Okay, so what IS there? Young’s Literal Translation, which is probably the closest word-for-word translation, says:
“Why is it that ye were seeking me? Did ye not know that in the things of my Father it behoveth me to be?”
It’s an awkward sentence and it’s closer, but the word for “things” isn’t really there either. The word is “THIS”.
Did you not know that in “this” of My Father, it is necessary to be Me?
It’s a weird sentence, by all accounts, and we can forgive our translators for trying to make this sentence easier to understand by suggesting what the word “this” implies. This place, this house, these things, this business… In all of “this” of My Father, I must be? To be me, I must be at the epicenter of all that YHWH stands for. It’s not just a physical place, like the House of God. It’s that and more. What is young 12 year old Jesus cryptically saying?.. where and what God is, I Am! So He asks His parents: Why wouldn’t I be where I Am?
My existence is dependent on everything that My Father is about. What He is, where He is, who He is… that is what and where and who I Am!
Later in His ministry Jesus will start dropping all these I Am statements:
I Am the Bread of Life. I Am the Light of the World. I Am the Vine. I Am the Good Shepherd. I Am the Door. I Am the Way, the Truth, the Life.
Everything that God is, I Am.
When Jesus faced off against the Jewish elite, He said:
John 8:56-59
“Your father Abraham was overjoyed that he would see My day, and he saw it and rejoiced.”
So the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and You have seen Abraham?”
Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was born, I Am.” Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and left the temple.
At the age of 12 He’s found IN the Temple making a very cryptic I Am statement and everyone is in awe of Him. Twenty years later, by the time He’s in His thirties, He says it plainly and He is forced out of the Temple… because the Presence of God was no longer welcome.But if we go back to when He was 12, young Jesus dropped this concept of His divine character “on the Third Day” after his parents were searching for Him. And we read:
Luke 2:50
…they [Mary & Joseph] did not understand the significance of these words.
I’m going to suggest that we haven’t truly understood it either. Now if it was just, “didn’t you know I’d be at the Temple”, Mary and Joseph would have probably said, “yes, we should’ve known you’d be there”. What they didn’t understand was the significance.
What was the significance of this cryptic sentence from 12 year old Jesus?Essentially Jesus was saying, where God resides, I Am! You found me on the third day as my true self! The place, the house, the business… everything connected to YHWH the Creator is connected to Me, and it will all be wrapped up in victory on the third day!
Here’s story number 2:
Jesus’ first recorded public miracle was when he turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana. Cana is only 7km up the road from Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, so he’s not that far from home. In fact, He was a wedding guest so He had some sort of connection to either the bride or the groom, or both.
So in John chapter 2 we read:
John 2:1-4
On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there; and both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.”
Jesus gives His mother a hard time about it, but He does go on to perform the miracle of turning water into wine.
But why does Jesus at first resist? He says “my hour has not yet come”… but the story tells us it’s the third day. He knows that starting the story is a road to His own demise which will end on the third day. Is he ready to start his journey on the third day towards his death on the third day? Without knowing what she’s really asking HIm to do, Mary tells Jesus that it is His hour, and the time has come. And so He does this miracle and it is the first recorded miracle of Jesus and it takes place on the third day. On the third day from what?… we don’t really know, and it doesn’t really matter. The phrase is placed there as a literary device to make you see connections.
This first miracle was the beginning of a long string of miracles, during Jesus’ life, which would culminate in the greatest miracle of all: Jesus rising from the dead… on the third day… full circle! Jesus was, understandably, hesitant to start on the path, but it was His mother to tell Him, “it’s time”… You must fulfil God’s plan for you.
The first miracle and the last miracle started and ended on the third day. This is not a coincidence. God wanted His Word, the Scriptures, to have an impact. And He knew the way to do that is to give humans what they crave… stories: a beautifully crafted, poetic, heartbreaking and triumphant story. We were never meant to read the Bible like a text book, or as if it was a list of rules and regulations (which is where we get the word RELIGION from… reglio… ). The Bible is written in story-form. It is a true story and it’s the story of the history and the future of humankind. We read that we are not alone. There’s a God who created us, loves us, and saves us from ourselves. Humans who want to rule and take power for themselves will never get it right. We were made to bear God’s image so, if we reject God, we’re not living up to our full human potential. We become more animal than human. Today we are seeing this rejection of our true selves (as God’s Image Bearers) being played out on a global scale. What happens when you reject your call to bear God’s Image? You just reflect your own self interests? You tap into the animal urges to be the biggest, the most powerful, the wealthiest, the most dominant at the expense of everyone around you. It’s not a pretty picture… and it’s certainly not what humans were created to be!
Jesus said, at the age of 12, to be Me, I must be all of “this” that God is… I must be the place, the house, the business, the essence, the Image of what it means to Be God… to bear His image. And so to kick off His campaign to share True Peace to the world, He turns water into wine.
And then, at the end of His life, He drinks the proverbial Cup. At the crucifixion He was offered sour wine… vinegar from a “cup” that wasn’t a cup:
John 19:28-31
Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, in order that the Scripture would be fulfilled, said, “I am thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a branch of hyssop and brought it up to His mouth. Therefore when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.
He started His ministry of miracles by turning pure water into the most delicious wine, and then His ministry of miracles comes to an end in sweat and tears as He drinks the bitterest vinegar-wine… and says, “it is finished”… “it is accomplished”… this is what “completion” looks like… this is PEACE, completion, shalom, at a horrific cost.
Story number 3…
About 30 years after Jesus’ final miracle, His death and resurrection, Paul is traveling around the Mediterranean preaching the Good News of Jesus. He gets in constant trouble and finds himself on a ship, under Roman guard, in the midst of a terrible storm after they left Crete (we read this story not long ago):
Acts 27:19-25
…and on the third day they threw the ship’s tackle overboard with their own hands. Since neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small storm was assailing us, from then on all hope of our being saved was slowly abandoned.
When many had lost their appetites, Paul then stood among them and said, “Men, you should have followed my advice and not have set sail from Crete, and thereby spared yourselves this damage and loss. And yet now I urge you to keep up your courage, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. For this very night an angel of the God to whom I belong, whom I also serve, came to me, saying, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar; and behold, God has graciously granted you all those who are sailing with you.’ Therefore, keep up your courage, men, for I believe God that it will turn out exactly as I have been told.
And so, on the third day, they did not go down with the ship. The floor of the ship could no longer hold them up. It sank but they rose up… they found solid ground and they were saved… on the third day.
This ties in beautifully with the verse from Hosea that we looked at last week:
Hosea 6:1-2
“Come, let us return to YHWH. For He has torn us, but He will heal us; He has wounded us, but He will bandage us. He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day [ba-yom ha-sh’lishi], that we may live in His Presence.”
This theme of rising up on the third day is everywhere, but you’ve got to look for it! Pay attention when you read the Bible. You’ll start to notice patterns and repeated phrases. These are devices that the authors use to turn a simple story into a work of art. They are highlighting the brilliance of the story… our story… the story of human redemption.
Each of us is an awesome work of art… worthy of God’s love and worthy of redemption. We have no right to be carrying around feelings of guilt or shame because Jesus’ death and resurrection on the third day was meant to free us from those burdens. Through the prophet Jeremiah, YHWH spoke, saying:
Jeremiah 31:33-34
“For I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.”
On the third day Jesus wiped the slate clean. We have to start living like we are truly free! Our own personal third day is coming, when we will go to the grave, but we won’t stay there. We will rise up and be in the Presence of YHWH. It’s a good end to an even better beginning.
Next week: Banished/Outcast/Driven Out
Hebrew Word Lessons 