It’s a ‘Third-Day’ Thing

Exodus 19:1-16

Any time something is said to have happened “on the third day” it catches my attention. Our passage from Exodus is no exception. “On the morning of the third day,” we read, “there was thunder and lightning, as well as a thick cloud on the mountain, and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled” (Exodus 19:16). In this context the significance of the third day is that the people have been purifying themselves and their clothing for two days in preparation for the appearance of God on the mountain. When the third day arrives the people are warned to stay clear; any human or animal that sets foot on the mountain at that time is to be killed (v. 12-13). Elsewhere in scripture Jonah is also said to have had a “third day” experience: it was the day he was finally spewed up by the great fish (Jonah 1:17; c.f. Matthew 12:40 with its reference to “the sign of Jonah”). And of course Jesus stepped from the tomb on Easter Sunday, the third day.

I don’t want to make too much out of this. The number three carries weight in the Judeo-Christian tradition for several reasons, but sometimes three is just a number. (I recall King Arthur in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” continually confusing the numbers 3 and 5; sometimes numbers are just numbers.) But to be God’s people is to live on the third day, a day of divine power and authority (as in Exodus), of redemption and salvation (as with Jonah), and of an utterly profound transformation (which we find in the resurrection). We have been living all these years and yet on the third day we find ourselves truly alive for the first time, whether we are journeying in the desert, fleeing God across the ocean, or staring at an empty tomb. Wherever we are, faith is a “third-day” reality in many ways.

Prayer: Lord, help us to embrace your grace and truth and to live the joy and meaning of the third day all our lives. In Jesus’ name. Amen.