When Jesus died, he stayed dead for an incredible amount of time — not one day, not two days, but three days!
To understand the significance of that, let’s take a look at what happens to the body during the first three days after death. Very quickly after death, the muscles of the body stiffen into rigor mortis. The eyes become clouded, and the cells in the skin begin to break down. By the time three days has passed, the cells are disintegrating, blood is clotting in the limbs of the dead and the body has passed from rigor mortis. The muscles begin to relax as the cells within start to disintegrate. In other words, after three days, the body is very much dead.2
Based on the way the body responds to death and how quickly it begins to break down, after three days the disciples would have expected Jesus’s body to be rotting. This was why the women came to the tomb — they wanted to finish preparing Jesus’s body for burial.1 This means that the disciples were not in denial. Even they truly believed that Jesus was dead.
Imagine how they must have felt during those three days. If Jesus didn’t jump down from the cross and heal himself on Good Friday, then perhaps they thought that he would wake up the next day, perhaps even before his muscles began to stiffen. Then, he didn’t. The whole day passes, and nothing happens. By this time, they might have begun to doubt that Jesus was even the Messiah.
Then, he wakes up on Sunday morning, and the women among them are the first to find out rather than the disciples themselves. There probably would have been confusion, and there certainly was doubt (Matthew 28:17 NLT).
This often happens during waiting periods. The disciples had to wait for three days, where they would have experienced doubt and may have struggled with their faith. However, God doesn’t operate by our timing. If he did, then Jesus would have jumped down from the cross before his death, and not fulfilled his mission on earth.
If God operated by our timing, we would have passed every test in school, our sick relatives would have been healed the second we prayed for them and we would have gotten married before our hearts were ready for such a commitment. God makes us wait for a reason, and that reason isn’t always clear, nor is it a uniform reason for everyone on earth. If God is making you wait, there is likely something that he is trying to teach you, or a fault that he is trying to point out to you. God’s timing is always perfect, so keep having faith. He’ll fulfill his promise to you when he’s ready and you’re ready.