Hi Marcia
You asked.......
It’s pretty simple.........
First the Lord said that He was going to be in the grave for 72 hours......
Matthew 12:40
“For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
And there is no way to get around this(He had to have died on Wednesday).
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Popular opinion, is that Christ must have died on Friday, because it was the preparation for the Sabbath(and that is Saturday), but what they fail to realize, is that this was a special Sabbath........
John 19:31
“The Jews therefore, because it was the preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath day, (for that sabbath day was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.”
This “high Sabbath”, had to do with the Passover celebration, and this fell on a different day if the week, each year.
This year, the high Sabbath happened to fall on a Thursday, so Wednesday was also a preparation day.