Third Day God

Today is about hope. We all hope. Pope John Paul II said that there is no faith without hope. Hope is faith waiting for tomorrow. Faith requires belief, and believing is what we do with our minds. Faith requires commitment, and committing is what we do with our wills.

“But faith must also have hope, and hoping is what we do with our hearts.”

I have hoped for a lot of things. And often I am disappointed. The Pitt Panthers come to mind. I would mention the Pittsburgh Pirates, but they no longer qualify in the hope category. I hope for a lot. John Ortberg says that hope comes in two flavors: hoping for something and hoping in someone. “I hope I get that job. I hope I get that house. I hope I get that girl. I hope I get that girl and she gets that job and we get that house.”

I hope its not cancer. But one day it will be. And if it’s not that, it will be something else. One day – and this is the truth – every thing we hope for will eventually disappoint us. Every thing, every circumstance, every situation is going to wear out, give out, fall apart, and fade away. “When that happens, the question then is about your deeper hope, your foundational hope, your fallback hope when all your other hopes are disappointed.”

There are different kinds of stories in the Bible, some of which can be divided by their time frame. There is the forty day story. These are usually “wait-around-and learn-patience” stories – Noah’s family on the ark; the Israelites hanging around Mt. Sinai waiting for the ten commandments; Elijah in the wilderness hiding from Jezebel. The focus of these stories is on the need for people to be faithful, to persevere. These are crock pot stories.

There is another kind of story – the three day story. These are stories about crisis and urgency –microwave stories. The focus is not on a need for human response at all. Here the pressure is so great that God must show up to the rescue, or it’s curtains. Three day stories are stories of desperate need and hope hanging by a thread. When Israel was afraid to go into the Promised Land, God said to Israel, “Be strong and courageous. . .Three days from now you will cross the Jordan here and go in and take possession of the land the Lord God is giving you for your own.” (Joshua 1.6, 11)


When Israel was threatened with genocide, Queen Esther said that she would fast for three days then go to the king to seek deliverance for her people.

When the prophet Jonah was swallowed by the great fish, guess how long he was in the belly of the fish? Yup, three days, before he was released. His prayer the whole time he was in that big fish was, “God, just let me go out the way I came in.” At least that’s what I think it was.

Three days becomes a term meaning the time to wait for deliverance. Right now, things are messed up. Right now, hope is being crushed. Right now, hearts are disappointed. But a better day is coming.

“Come, let us return to the Lord. . .After two days, he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence.” Hosea 6.1-2


Good Friday wasn’t good for Jesus and it wasn’t good for all the people who had put their hopes in him. At least there was no good apparent that day. It was a day full of suffering and agony and crushing disappointment. We watch a film of the Passion and flinch and say, wait, was it that bad? Yes, it was that bad. It was a dark day.

The second day didn’t look any better. Pilate and the Pharisees posted a guard around the tomb. Pilate was in control now and he didn’t want anything funny happening. He had heard the third day prophecies. He would secure the tomb. He would make sure the prophecy didn’t come true. He said to himself, “Well, I guess that’s the end of that. I guess we won’t hear any more about that movement. I don’t know much about this Jesus but we sure have built him a nice little cage.”

But a funny thing did happen – Jesus would not be secured. He would not be caged. He would not even be entombed. Yes, he would die, of his own accord, his own purpose. He purposefully died for us. He died the death we should die. The was the second day, a dark day; a disappointing day.

But the story of Jesus is a three day story. And friends, the third day is God’s day. The day belongs to him. What God wants to happen on the third day will happen. On the third day mountains shake and rivers part and the people go into the Promised Land. The third day is a day when harem girls like Esther face down powerful kings. The third day is when prophets like Jonah are dropped off at seaports by giant fish. The third day is the day when stones are rolled away.

We have a black and white family portrait in our house taken a few years ago. I like to look at the picture. I think we look pretty good. I looked at this picture one time and realized that I am at the age my father was when I have the most vivid memories of him when I was a kid. He was around forty years old when I was playing Little League ball and when we went trout fishing together in the Spring in the late seventies. I look at me in that family portrait and I can see my dad. I used to tell my boys stories about my dad and my grandfather, about fishing and picking berries and Little League games.

“They’ve been dead a long time,” Seth once said.

“Sometimes it seems that way,” I say. “I miss those guys. We’ll see them again,”

I say. I say this because I hope. I hope not just in something but I hope in Some One. I hope in the One who went to the Cross for my sins and rose up out of that tomb by the power of God. I hope that his resurrection will be the power that raises me to new life. He is my foundational hope when all other hopes fade.

I hope that when they play taps for me on this side someone is playing reveille on the other side.

I hope. I hope, but this man, this Jesus, says he knows.

He’s a third day God. From that third day on, the world has never been the same. Jesus’ followers, who used to observe the Sabbath on Saturday, began instead to observe on Sunday – on the third day – what they began to call “the Lord’s Day.” They said, “we’re third day people now. We’re betting the farm on this one.” The kingdom they hoped for had turned out to be real.

I put my hope, all of it, in a third day God.