Good Friday?

Many local churches and ministers on the radio and internet speak of how our Lord was crucified on Friday. I have wondered how this idea came about, for it has been around for a long time. It seems this is one of those times when the scriptures have been looked at by a different culture, and that cultural understanding has been forced upon the text and been accepted as fact by the majority of Christian believers.

Mark 15:42; New King James Version (NKJV) “Now when evening had come, because it was the Preparation Day, that is, the day before the Sabbath,” The Greek word for preparation is the same as the Greek word for Friday. It is clear that Mark is talking about Friday, and he and Jews of his day clearly understood what he was saying, but do we understand what Mark is talking about. The charts below show the difference between our present understanding of time (the first chart, showing a 24 hour day starting midnight Sunday through Saturday) and (the second chart) the traditional Jewish understanding of time starting after the sun was down (colored corresponding day), and (the third chart) how these days overlap. (the Jewish day varied slightly with changing of the seasons)

 

Most Christians in North America understand that the Jewish Sabbath (Saturday) starts on the modern Friday evening but never stop to think, what does that do with the Jewish day of preparation (Friday). The answer of course is that it starts on the day before, or on the modern north American Thursday night. We need to have a right understanding as to which day this is actually referring to. If we look at the following verses of Genesis 1: 1-31, it may help us to better understand. (NKJV); 1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day. 6 Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” 7 Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day. 9 Then God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so. 10 And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good. 11 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 So the evening and the morning were the third day. 14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. 17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 So the evening and the morning were the fourth day. 20 Then God said, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” 21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 So the evening and the morning were the fifth day. 24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. 31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day”.

In each of the verses in bold lettering (verses 5,8,13,19,23,and 31) we find the same wording each time; “ the evening and the morning were the – day.” This is the pattern that Jewish culture follows. The writers of the New Testament would never have comprehended our understanding of time. For thousands of years, since the beginning of time, as Genesis teaches us, the understanding was that the new day started in the evening. In the law, you were unclean till the end of the day, till twilight (often translated as even). Then because evening was the start of the new day, having fulfilled the cleansing rites, you were considered clean again. Even to this day, the Sabbath begins on our Friday evening not our Saturday morning as some would expect. So when we read in Mark: Mark 15:42 (NKJV) 42 “And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, 43 Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself looking for the kingdom of God, took courage and went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. 44 Pilate was surprised to hear that he should have already died. And summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he was already dead. 45 And when he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the corpse to Joseph”. Mark is not saying it is the evening of our Friday night or he would have said “it was evening it was the Sabbath”. He says it is the evening, which would be the beginning of “the Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath”, which in our culture would be Thursday evening. This would make the day that Christ was crucified to be Thursday, and not Friday, as most of western Christianity claims. The problem with not correcting this misunderstanding is that it gives critics of the Bible the opportunity to cast doubt on the accuracy of the scriptures by citing Christ's words in;

Matthew 12:40; “For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth”. Friday to early Sunday morning does not make three days and three nights, no matter how many verbal acrobatics we use to try to explain it away.

Matthew also agrees that it is in the evening (the beginning of the day of preparation) that Joseph asks Pilate about the body of Jesus.

Matthew 27:57; “When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who also was a disciple of Jesus.” ESV

In the following verses of Luke and Matthew we are told that Jesus died at 3 o'clock or shortly after. Luke 23:44-46; 44 “It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 while the sun's light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.”

Matthew 27:45-46; 45 “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. 46 and about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

John tells us that the Jews ask Pilate to break the legs of the three men on the crosses, yet, when the soldiers get to Jesus, they find He is dead already and in piercing His side discover He had been dead for several hours. The separation of blood and water as mentioned in verse 34 gives evidence of this. Hence, it is well into the evening, and it is as John says, the Jewish “day of preparation.”

John 19:31-34 31 Since it was the day of Preparation, and so that the bodies would not remain on the crosses on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. 32 “So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the other who had been crucified with him. 33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34 But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water”.

The verse that has many people questioning, is John 19:14

John 19:14 Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!”

This verse as written here seems to contradict the rest of John and the other gospels. But this is clearly not the Sabbath preparation, but as John states, it is the preparation of the Passover. It is the day that the lamb would be slain and the feast of unleavened bread would begin at the end of this day.(the evening or beginning of the next day) When it comes between our tradition and scripture we need to be quick to let our tradition go.

For your consideration

To the Glory of God.

Leigh