Mat 12:38-40

Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.”

But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet;

for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

The religious rulers were demanding a sign.
Proof that Jesus was Who He said He was.

Jesus said the only sign they would receive would be the sign of Jonah the prophet.
Note that Jesus called Jonah a prophet.
Note that Jesus believed (knew!) that Jonah was a real person.
Jesus believed that the fish account was true, accurate.
Many in “the church” today reject it.

The Son of Man would be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.
Not a portion of a day…as many would seek to explain the timing of “good friday”.
Three days.
Three nights.

How can it be that the believers have been wrong about this for so many years?
Because they have not examined the Word of God.
They assumed that the sabbath was the weekly sabbath.

Jesus was hurried off the cross due to the fact that the next day was the sabbath.
But, not the weekly sabbath…sundown Friday to sundown Saturday.
Rather, it was Nisan 15, the first day of the feast of Unleavened Bread, a holy convocation.
A sabbath.

Lev 23:6-7

‘Then on the fifteenth day of the same month there is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the LORD; for seven days you shall eat unleavened bread.

‘On the first day you shall have a holy convocation; you shall not do any laborious work.

Jhn 19:31

Then the Jews, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.

The Word tells us directly that the next day was a “high day”.
It was not the weekly sabbath.

Here is the short of it.

Jesus died on “our” Wednesday afternoon at 3 p.m. on the Day of Preparation, Nisan 14, Passover.
He died the Passover Lamb.
He was buried.

When the Jews sat down for the Passover meal that evening it became Nisan 15.
(The Hebrew day begins at sundown.)

Evening/Morning, Day 1. Thursday
Evening/Morning, Day 2. Friday
Evening/Morning, Day 3. Saturday

Three days.
Three nights.

At sundown Saturday, Sunday came.

Jesus was resurrected sometime thereafter.

The women discovered the empty tomb later, just before sunrise.

Is all this important?
I think so.
If we can not be trusted in speaking the truth in such a simple matter, then why should we be trusted with the weightier matters of the faith?

Do we separate fellowship over such?
Start the First Church of Wednesday Death?
Or course not.

But, why not know and speak the truth?
Why not be accurate?