What A Difference Three Days Can Make

For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Matthew 12:40

They say three days is about the max a person can go without water. Did you ever consider that Jonah probably didn’t have anything to eat or drink for the three days he was in the belly of the great fish? Did you ever think about how pitch black it would have been? We know Jonah prayed while in the belly of the fish, probably after he had spent some time contemplating past decisions.

In comparison, Saul of Tarsus definitely didn’t eat or drink during the three days that followed his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus where he was struck blind. Like Jonah, Saul spent his time in the dark fasting, praying, and, probably, contemplating his life. He probably thought about all the Christians he had put in jail, perhaps recalling in particular the day his Jewish brothers had laid their coats at his feet so they could stone Stephen to death unencumbered.

But at the end of the three days and three nights of fasting, darkness, contemplation, repentance, and prayer, God sent both Jonah and Saul what they needed to carry on, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. “God spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land” (Jonah 2:10). The Lord appeared to Ananias in a vision and said to him, “Arise and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus, for behold he is praying” (Acts 9:11). Ananias restored Saul’s sight, taught him the gospel, and baptized him. It seems that only then did Saul eat (Acts 9:18-19; cf. Acts 22:12ff).

You might say that in Exodus 10 the Egyptians “fasted” from light during the plague of darkness. How long did it last? That’s right– three days. Pharaoh had the same amount of time that Jonah and Saul had to sit in darkness and ponder the situation. And at first it seemed that he, too, might have been brought to repentance. In verse 24 he tells Moses to take the people and go. But when Moses said they were going to take their livestock with them so they would have something to sacrifice to God, Pharaoh changed his mind, his heart hardened again.

Does God ever put us in time-out, with nothing to do but sit and think? It seems God views three days as a good amount of time for a person to contemplate things; to look at his life and decide if he will keep going the same direction or make a turn. It seems like prayer and fasting (from food or maybe from the lights of our screens) are good ways to facilitate such decision-making.

I wonder about the centurion who, after watching Jesus die on the cross, confessed, “Truly this was the Son of God!” (Matthew 27:54). Did he spend the next three days evaluating his part in what had taken place? Most likely after those three days he heard that Jesus had risen from the dead. Did the events of those three days change that centurion’s life?

Certainly those three days changed the course of history. They changed my life and the lives of countless others who believe. In the space of that time, just three days, a perfect sacrifice was offered for the sins of all mankind before and after. AND the man who gave himself to be that sacrifice rose from the dead never to die again. AND this meant that both forgiveness and resurrection were now possible for sinful men and women everywhere and in every time.

What a difference a day makes, you say? What about the difference three days can make? In the cases of Pharaoh, Jonah, Saul, and Jesus, a crucial three-day period began with a dramatic yet negative event. How do we respond when negative events force us to question the direction of our lives? Or to consider our own sin? Repentance means a change of mind, and that should lead to a change in direction. Will we harden our hearts or will we repent? Will we allow the gospel of Jesus to change us?

Dear God, thank you for the opportunities you give me to be aware of my sin and to make the needed changes. Help me to take the time I need to contemplate my life, and help me to repent and turn to Jesus, the one who died to make forgiveness and eternal life possible. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

by Christie Cole Atkins