The Day Christ Died
This month, I’m preaching a series of sermons that literally tracks the 24 hours of the day Christ died. I’ve assigned it to April 5th, A.D. 30. This Jewish day actually starts on Wednesday at 6pm. More about that in a minute.
Each sermon will cover three hours, so for instance, the first sermon will cover the time between 6pm and 9pm of April 5th, A.D. 30. We will, as always, primarily look at one passage, but will draw in all the information from not only the Gospels but also from outside the Gospels, even looking to some Jewish traditions of the time and some secular records that will help us understand the politics of the day.
The A.D. 30 year seems to be the year most widely accepted as the day Christ died and it also matches up with the year of Jubilee, which swings my vote to that year as I believe that Christ died in a Jubilee year. This was year in the Old Testament that was every 49 years and was a year of deliverance or atonement. God seemed to have orchestrated great things in Jubilee years, like the dedication of Solomon’s Temple and other things. Some even start the Jubilee system with creation and then there are all sorts of great things to tie in, but I’ve not studied that theory yet.
Another interesting item is that if the year Christ died was a Jubilee year, then the Jews added a Sabbath Day onto the annual Sabbath and called it a High Sabbath and sacrificed one lamb that was called the Lamb of Jubilee or Atonement. This lamb was slain at 3pm on Thursday, on the High Sabbath. And thus the reason that I think Christ was crucified on Thursday. Oh and the math works better too on Christ being in the tomb three days; Thursday, Friday, Saturday.
This series will be both in the morning and the evening and culminate on Palm Sunday evening with Christ being laid in a borrowed tomb, obviously a great way to end with Easter next week.
Thankful for the day Christ died,
Pastor Abell
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