Pastor’s Letter: April 20, 2025 Easter

Pastor’s Letter: April 20, 2025 Easter

18 Apr 2025 | Posted by: chadmin

Dear St. Philomena Parish Family,

Blessed Easter! Christ is risen, Alleluia! He is risen indeed, Alleluia! I hope all of you enjoy the blessings and joys of the gift of Christ’s Resurrection. As we gather this weekend to celebrate Easter Sunday, we recognize with great joy that Christ has conquered sin and death and that the gates of Heaven are thrown open for the faithful. We celebrate that Jesus has kept His promises, fulfilled His mission, and opened the door for our reconciliation to God. We also recall that Jesus has fulfilled the many prophecies of old…as well as many that He gave us Himself.

A few years ago, someone asked me about the reference to “three” days in the tomb…so, I thought it would be fruitful to review through how we understand those three days. I would guess that if I asked you about the prophecy of Jesus rising after three days in the tomb most all of us would say that sounds familiar. It definitely should—did you know that Jesus said something (or a reference is made to what Jesus said) about being in the tomb three days at least 11 times in the gospels! If you have extra time on your hands, check out any of the following: Matthew 16:21, 17:23, 23:19, 27:63; Mark 8:31, 9:31, 10:34; and Luke 9:22, 18:33, 24:7, 24:46. If you want to wait to check those out later, here is one for now: “From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day” (Mt 16:21).

You might be thinking it is clear that Jesus saw this coming…and that He fulfilled it perfectly…Amen! Alleluia! However, for some, the question might remain…all those Scriptures say Jesus will be in the tomb for three days…we remember His death and burial on Good Friday, but we celebrate His resurrection on Saturday night. To many of us, that might only seem like one day…or a day and a half at best. How does the timeframe we observe fulfill what the Scriptures say about three days in the tomb????

If we know a little about the Jewish culture, it actually makes wonderfully perfect sense of how we count the three days. In our reckoning of time, each day begins at midnight…when the clock strikes twelve we move from Friday night to Saturday morning. The Jewish people, however, reckoned time in a different way. For them, the next day begins at sunset (actually pretty interesting to think about beginning a new day with a nice long sleep/rest! =) ). So, if we take the days with a Jewish understanding of time…Jesus died around 3pm on Good Friday and was placed in the tomb soon after (Friday is the 1^st day). At sundown on Friday, the next day (Saturday—the 2^nd day) begins. Jesus remains in the tomb all during the day Saturday and then at sundown the 3^rd day (Sunday) begins. We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus at the Easter Vigil (which begins at sundown) because it is the soonest moment we arrive at 3 days in the tomb.

I’ve always been struck with great joy to think about the time of Jesus in the tomb in that way…it is as if He is only in the tomb the shortest amount of time possible to fulfill the prophecy. Said another way, death could only hold Him the shortest amount of time possible to fulfill all the Scriptures! Now that is worth celebrating this Easter! Know that all of you are in my prayers and that I look forward to continuing our Easter celebration in the weeks ahead: Christ is risen, Alleluia!  He is risen indeed, Alleluia!

Know of my prayers and blessing this week!

God bless,

Father Luke