About Bayanda Mzoneli
Bayanda Mzoneli is a public servant. He writes in his personal capacity.
“On an question such as this, we should, perhaps, start from the beginning.
So, let me begin.
I am a Catholic.
I owe my being to the design and intellect, the mercy and the grace, the love, the forgiveness, the care, the teachings, the Word and the Son of our Father who art in Heaven.” [courtesy Small Man at Engen House]
I really am a Christian. I know the Bible says I shouldn’t tell you when I’m fasting but just so you know; I have not been eating meat every Friday since Ash Wednesday on 25 February 2009 because of Lent fasting. That’s how we do it at the Catholic Church.
We are told that Jesus Christ died and resurrected after 3 days. We are then told that the Easter Weekend is a celebration of His death. The logic applied on the Easter Weekend is that Jesus died on Friday and resurrected on Sunday. I have counted that using the sun, the hours and even rounding-off days to try and make it 3 days. It is just not.
The bible says Jesus was killed on the day of His prosecution. From that we can then say Pontious Pilate began with the process in the morning, taking presentations from various witnesses. He then passed a not guilty verdict, but various leaders opposed the judgement so he let them be. Soldiers then spent the day beating Jesus up and later made him carry the cross all the way to Calvary. In the afternoon they nailed him to the cross and He died there. Using the Easter Weekend logic this would be on Good Friday in the afternoon.
The bible says when Mary and others came to the tomb very early in the morning (ngovivi lukaMagadalena), they found that Jesus was no longer there. It seems they came on Sunday morning because they could not come on Saturday to oil/perfume the body because it was Sabbath. For the purposes of this text lets say they got there at around 05h00 in the morning, even though it seems it was much earlier than that. So Jesus had resurrected before 05h00 on Sunday morning.
Using a 24 hour day, it looks like Jesus spent less than 2 days in the tomb. If He died on Good Friday at 18h00 in the afternoon and woke up on Easter Sunday at 04h00, before Mary arrived, that makes it 34 hours. When rounding off 34 hours to the nearest day, it becomes 48 hours which is 2 days. He would need more time at the tomb to make it 3 days.
It is undesirable to change the Easter Sunday as the Day of resurrection because there is a Sabbath excuse in the bible of why Mary et al did not go then. It is also undesirable to change the number of days that Jesus died because it is fixed by Jesus in other texts in the bible. The only thing that looks flexible is the Day of his Crucifixion. At least it should be moved to Thursday in order to try achieve the 3 days when rounding off to the nearest day.
Be that as it may, I wish to encourage all Christians to go to church this Easter Weekend. Even though it seems the same verses are read all the time, the priests always change their homily, it is important not to miss this one. As for Catholics ( plus Lutherans, Wesley and Anglican), remember that we also have the Holy Thursday. We have got to attend that, it distinguishes us from the rest of the Christian Franchise Churches.
As for non-Christians, we are pleased to have you join us in celebrating what you don’t believe. As Terror Yako would put it, perhaps you should consider going to work on Good Friday in defiance of what is being celebrated. God loves you even if you don’t believe in Him.
Peace be with you!