When Was Christ Actually Crucified?

Some Say the Bible Clearly Shows it was... Thursday?!    

     Some years ago, during Holy Week, I was listening to a Non-Catholic Christian radio show talking about Christ's Passion, Death and Resurrection.  A caller called in and questioned the hosts' Biblical literacy.  The caller stated that Christ said he would be in the tomb "three days and three nights" using the story of Jonah to make the point (Mt 12:40, Lk 11:29).  Since Christ Resurrected on the 1st day of the Jewish week - the day we now call Sunday - this would mean, the called instructed, that Christ was actually Crucified on Thursday.  The caller then stated that it was the errant Catholic Church, for some unknown and unstated reason, who tried to fool everyone into thinking Christ was crucified on Friday.  The hosts, who are no defenders of Catholicism, denied the caller's claim and reiterated that Christ was crucified on Friday, but never used any Scripture to back the rebuttal.  The called rebuked them for believing a "tradition of men" and hung up.

     In the years since, I have learned that this is a growing opinion among "Bible Alone" Christians.  In just doing an internet search on "sign of Jonah three days three nights" the third link down was an article about Christ "actually" being crucified on Thursday.  I did not read the article to find out if they took a swipe at the Catholic Church or not.

     How do we, as main stream Christians and Catholics, defend the fact that Christ was crucified on Friday in light of Scripture saying he would be in the tomb "three days and three nights?"  Catholics hold that Scripture is "inerrant" that is, with out error (See Dei Verbum).  How do we reconcile the two?

Boy Did I Just Shoot Myself in the Foot!

     There are actually several ways: one is the unanimous voice of the earliest Christians (Who you going to believe: a person who learned from someone who was there or a person who is 2,000 years and 10,000 miles removed relying on their own personal interpretation?) However, the way we'll focus on here is the phrase "three days and three nights."

     As I eluded to in the previous parenthetical, today we are 2,000 years and 10,000 (give or take) miles removed from the context in which Scripture was written and understood.  We miss things on every page of Scripture because we were not raised Jewish, nor in a Middle Eastern country, nor in the 1st Century.  As a quick example, when told the story of the Prodigal Son, a Middle Eastern audience was most struck that the father would "run" to his son.  To run is beneath the dignity of the father of a family.  It would bring embarrassment to him.  In a sense, then, a small part of the story is showing how God is willing to be embarrassed in order to show how much He loves us and welcomes us back into relationship with Him.

    More to the point, the phrase "three days and three nights" in the Jewish culture did not mean a strict, literal 72 hours; it is a figure of speech; an idiom.  It meant any parts of three days.  We see this in at least one other place in Scripture in the book of Esther.  Esther asks the Jews to fast for her for "three days and nights" before she sees the king (Ester 4:16).  Yet it is "on the third day" that she goes to see the king (Ester 5:1; 15:1).

     To the 1st Century Jewish understanding, if I were to say "in three days" I'm going to do something, the day I say that is considered day #1 even if it were 10 mins to midnight (or sunset in the Jewish custom of when days end / begin); the following day would be day #2 and at any point on the day after that it would be considered "the third day."

     Would anyone in modern America be concerned for my safety if I exclaimed "Boy did I just shoot myself in the foot!"  Would anyone call an ambulance for a gunshot wound?  No.  Neither would any 1st Century Jew think it strange to call the time between Christ's crucifixion on Good Friday and Resurrection on Sunday "three days;" or the full expression "three days and three nights."

 

Take it to Scripture

    

      If someone continues to insist on a strict, literal interpretation of Christ's expression of "three days and three nights" then they have a problem.  Else where Christ says he rose "on the third day" (Lk 24:46) not after the third night; he also states he would rise "in three days" (Jn 2:19-21).  Both of these, if taken in the strict, modern, American, literalist view point would contradict with "three days and three nights" if taken literally.  There are also the verses that state that Jesus was placed in the tomb just before the start of the Sabbath (which is sunset), then the women rested on the Sabbath (the last day of the Jewish week), then at dawn on the first day of the Jewish week they returned and found the tomb empty.  (Mk 15:42, 16:1-2; Lk 23:54 - 24:1)  Again, taken strictly literal these verses would contradict Christ's statement of "three days and three nights." We could multiply examples  Testaments.

      The Catholic view is to take everything to Scripture - the ENTIRE Scripture, not just one or two verses we've been told about - as interpreted by those Christ left behind to teach us (Lk 10:16; Mt 28:18ff).  In Catholicism we're taught to read Scripture in four different ways, the first one being literal, however, 'literal' means reading the words in light of literary genre and the culture in which it was written.  We have no problem rectifying all of these verses.  Remembering that "three days and three nights" (and it's short-cut way of saying it: "three days") is an idiom referring to any part of three days.

    So given the literary genre, culture and words of Scripture we see all these phrases pointing to Christ was crucified and died on Good Friday; was placed in the Tomb before the Sabbath began in the evening (1 day); was in the Tomb all of Holy Saturday or the Sabbath (2 day); then Rose before dawn "on the Third Day", Sunday, the 1st Day of the Jewish week (3rd day).  Hence the sign of Jonah is fulfilled.

 

 

Do Catholics Pray TO Saints and if so why?

Prayer to Saints Explained

    In my journey back to the Catholic Church one of the questions I had to confront was this idea of Catholics praying to Saints in heaven.  Isn't that blasphemy?  We should pray to God alone, shouldn't we?

     I didn't see the logical fallacy in my objection: I didn't define terms.  I assumed that everyone defined "prayer" as "worshiping God."  By that definition, yes, "prayer to" Saints would be blasphemous.

     However, it blew the lid off that objection when I discovered that "prayer" has TWO definitions.  According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary the word "Pray" means 1) To speak to God and 2) To seriously ask for something.  I then discovered that until very recently, most people used the word "pray" to mean "to ask" even in regular speech: a detective might have said, "Pray tell, what happened?" not meaning, "I'm worshiping you so that you'll tell me what happened."  but merely meaning "I'm asking you to tell me what happened." 

     We still use "pray" today to mean "to ask" in certain circles.  It was a game changer the first time I had to fill out a search warrant for my job (Police Officer).  The warrant says, "I pray the court [grant me this search warrant]."  Now in our "Separation of Church and State" crazed world, would anyone think that I'm performing an act of Worship to the court for a search warrant?  No, it's just a formal way of asking for a search warrant.

     The whole "Pray" part of my objection was once-and-for-all put to bed when I realized that the BIBLE uses the word 'Pray' to mean "to ask."  In both the King James translation and the Douay-Rheims translation we see things like 1 Kings 2:20 Bathsheba comes to her son, King Solomon, and says, "I pray thee say me not nay." [Emphasis added].  There are dozens of uses of the word 'pray' meaning 'to ask' in those two translations alone.

But is praying to Saints Biblical?

    I then had to ask if praying to Saints is Biblical?  (It was a while before I encountered the false presupposition in my objection: the idea that everything we believe as Christians must be found in the Bible is, itself, not found in the Bible.)

    In researching, I found bits and pieces of the puzzle, but it wasn't until I heard two explanations - one from Patrick Madrid, and one from Tim Staples - that I not only realized how Biblical it really was, but how unbiblical ignoring this is.

    I have now meshed the two arguments to show you here:

 

Scripture is just about as plain as it can get about the following points:

1) The Church is the Body of Christ (Col 1:18; 1 Cor 12:27)

2) Christ has only one Body, not one here on earth and another in heaven (1 Cor 12:12)

3) Death does not separate us from the Body of Christ (Rom 8:37-38)

4) We are commanded to pray for one another (1 Tim 2:1-4)

5) This command is not rescinded upon death

6) We are told that in the New Covenant we can now approach not only God, but Christ, "innumerable angels" and "the souls of just men made perfect."  (Heb 12:22-24)

7) We see this in action (Rev 5:8) where the elders are taking multiple prayers from multiple believers on earth and presenting them before the throne of God

8) This is not "praying to the dead" because the Saints are not dead, they are more alive than we are (Mt 22:32) and no where in Scripture does it say that those who are in heaven with Christ are "dead"

9) Christ shows us that we can do this in the Transfiguration (Mt 17:3) where Moses and Elijah appear with Him and Christ speaks to them about His upcoming death and resurrection

10) We are told that the prayers of the Righteous are powerful (Jas 5:16) who is more righteous: those living on earth still mired in sin or those who are permanently free from sin in heaven?

11) This does not violate the One Mediator-ship (1 Tim 2:5) of Christ any more than one Christian on earth praying for another.  Why not just tell them to approach God themselves and stop putting you in the middle (which is the definition of mediator)?

 

This is a very brief explanation.  For a full treatment I suggest Patrick Madrid's book "Any Friend of God's is a Friend of Mine" or Tim Staples' "Friends in High Places."

 

I hope this lends some understanding to the very Biblical practice of praying to Saints.

 

All you Holy Men and Women PRAY FOR US!

 

Men for All Seasons recap, Official Patroness announced, next meeting

Next Meeting March 26th 8:00 am

Yes, that is Holy Saturday

Welcome to all new sign-ups from Men For All Seasons!

     Our next meeting is on Holy Saturday, March 26th, 8:00 - 9:30a, at the Gehl Center (the building directly behind St. Francis Xavier Cathedral in Green Bay).  We'll be going over the basics of Evangelization in general - how to have a conversation with someone.  We'll use lots of stories but almost as important: the 'how'; how do we move the topic to religion / spiritual things; how do we earn the right to talk about the most personal things in their life and invite them to explore  Catholicism?  For those of you unable to make it I will try to do a follow up post.

     

     I would also ask each of you to consider coming with Shawn and I to watch while we do Street Evangelization.  We're starting to gear up for Summer: Farmer's Markets, De Pere Fest; Manitowoc Kite Festival; Packer's Practices and Games etc.  We'll let you know dates as we're able to do them.  We may even do a fast one and switch the site of our meeting one month to be the farmer's market!  Please pray on this.  We're firm believers that Christ's final charge to us was NOT "Go get yourselves to heaven." but "Go make disciples... teach them everything I have commanded." (Mt28:18ff).

 

     If you'd like to know more about how we do Street Evangelization check out: streetevangelization.com (no 'www' just "streetevangelization.com").  Sign up for their news letter and read some testimonials from some of the over 150 teams of Catholics across all 50 states and over 30 countries.

 

Official Patroness of Fidei Defensor:

     The more I do this work, and the longer I live, the less I believe in coincidents.  The table next to Fidei Defensor's at Men for All Seasons was a couple of Byzantine Catholic monks selling icons... well selling many copies of ONE icon.  I love art and icons and this icon caught my eye.  It was obviously of Mary and the Child, Jesus.  But it wasn't until late in the conference I got over there and had, what ended up being, a great discussion with one of the Brothers.  The icon is called, "Mary, Mother of God, Seeker of the Lost."  You can see it at their Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/SearcherForTheLost/

 

   The prayer behind it is that Mary wants everyone to come to find, know and love her Son, Jesus Christ, but this Title and icon is a special prayer / help for those lost sheep who have wandered from the fold or never knew it.

     When I told the Brother that I was going to adopt Mary under the title: Mother of God, Seeker of the Lost, as our Patroness, he gave me around 100 3x5 card prints of the icon to hand out on our Street Evangelization days.

     Please continue to pray for Fidei Defensor and it's members, and if you remember, now request the intercession of Mary, Mother of God, Seeker of the Lost.

 

Men for All Seasons Re-cap

     We spoke to easily 100 men at the Men for All Seasons conference this past weekend.  Out of that we had lengthy conversations with dozens of them - I left there with my voice hoarse.  The most meaningful conversations came from men who were looking for answers to help bring their family members back into the Catholic Faith.  Our pamphlets on "Why be Catholic?",  "Reasons to Return to the Catholic Church", "Scriptural Reference Guide" and "Prayer to Saints" were obviously our most popular pamphlets there, however, many of the men took one of everything.

    I'll type a little about a few of the more member able conversations:

     One elderly man was deeply saddened that his three sons were not serious about their faith.  Two, he said, attended Mass only on Christmas and Easter and otherwise didn't go at all.  The third was attending, sporadically as well, a non-denominational church.  We talked to him about first and foremost praying for and loving his sons as best he could.  We let him know that it is sometimes more effective to have someone else talk to family members about the faith then himself, however, that can mean a book or a CD.  We recommended "Jesus Is_____?" - a CD from Lighthouse Catholic Media, by Fr. Michael Schmidtz, which is good for people who are luke-warm to almost non-participating Catholics, for his two sons.  But we recommended "True Worship" again a CD through Lighthouse Catholic Media by Fr. Schmidtz, for his non-denominational son, which walks through what the Biblical true way to worship God is: The Eucharist.

     Another man was just coming back into the Catholic Church after years away.  He had been married, divorced and remarried.  He had some questions about what his status was with the Church.  We told him he was absolutely welcome!  We explained that he would have to receive a Declaration of Nullity for his first marriage before he could receive Confession or the Eucharist OR he and his current wife could live as "Brother and Sister."  He described the way his first marriage happened and that it was in a Protestant church, without permission from the Church.  Shawn was aware from a family member who had a similar experience, that the process probably would be a short one due to a violation of "form."  We directed him to his parish priest at first, but there were so many priests at the conference we put him in touch with one right there!  We also directed him to a small booklet on Catholic Answers titled: 101 Quick Questions: Divorce and Annulment.

     Finally, we had a man who had come back to the Catholic Church a few years earlier.  He had questions about how to raise his teenaged son to not make the same mistakes he did, without sounding and feeling like a hypocrite.  We explained to him that the definition of a hypocrite is NOT having done one thing, learning from it and then teaching someone else to avoid it.  That's called "Learning from your mistakes."  A hypocrite is not even someone who believes something, tries to live what they believe but fails to do so.  That's called "a sinner"; and I am absolutely in that list.

     A hypocrite is someone who believes one thing, but teaches others to believe something else.  For example: just recently a nationally known Catholic Apologist was "outed" by a Catholic news group that he had joined and been attending an Anglican / Episcopalian congregation for 2 years while still giving seminars and talks defending the Catholic Church.  THAT is a hypocrite. 

    We also directed this man to look up Steve Ray's "Swimming Up Stream" available at Lighthouse Catholic media again.  It's a talk about how to raise our children to be Rebels With a Cause; rebelling against the secular world, swimming against the current of this culture. 

    We had MANY other talks like this with men of all ages.  Please pray for all these men and their families... and as always please pray for Fidei Defensor.

 

God Bless,

Fidei Defensor

Mary, Mother of God, Seaker of the Lost, pray for us!