What happened on the third day?

The short answer

Early on the first day of the week, women came to the tomb with spices. They found the stone rolled away and his body gone, and they were told he had risen. John adds that Mary Magdalene met Jesus himself in the garden and knew him when he said her name.

What the record says

Jesus died on a Friday. People then counted Friday, Saturday and Sunday as three days, so Sunday morning was the third day.

Mark tells how the women set out:

When the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, that they might come and anoint him. Very early on the first day of the week, they came to the tomb when the sun had risen.

Mark 16:1-2

On the way they wondered who would move the stone. When they looked up, “they saw that the stone was rolled back” (Mark 16:4). Luke says they went in and “didn’t find the Lord Jesus’ body” (Luke 24:3). Two men in dazzling clothing spoke to them:

“Why do you seek the living among the dead? He isn’t here, but is risen.

Luke 24:5-6

John follows Mary Magdalene:

Now on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene went early, while it was still dark, to the tomb, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.

John 20:1

She stayed outside the tomb, weeping. A man spoke to her, and “supposing him to be the gardener,” she asked where the body had been laid (John 20:15). Then:

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

John 20:16

She turned and called him Teacher. The Gospels tell the morning a little differently from one another, but all of them say the tomb was empty and the women were the first to know.

How Third Day tells it

Third Day is a novel. In the novel he goes by Yeshua, the name his family would have called him. In chapter twenty-one, “The Morning,” five women leave Joseph’s house before three with oil, myrrh and linen. Their lamp goes out at the first corner and they go on in the dark. At the garden the seal is broken and both stones stand away from the entrance. Mary of Magdala goes in first. The linen lies where the body had been, and the face cloth is folded where his head had rested. Outside, a man stands among the olives.

“Mary.”

The voice reached first.

He sends the women to tell his apostles, and Peter, that he has risen and that they have talked with him.