Easter! It's About the Resurrection of Jesus!

I have chosen the the last verse of this familiar Easter hymn for the text of an Easter card I have in my Zazzle store. The words to this hymn bring together the relationship between the graveyard in my first picture and the joy of Resurrection Day: Here are the words written by Charles Wesley in 1739:

"Christ the Lord is risen today," Alleluia!
Sons of men and angels say; Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high; Alleluia!
Sing, ye heavens, and earth reply. Alleluia!

Lives again our glorious King; Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once He died our souls to save; Alleluia!
Where thy victory, O grave? Alleluia!

Love's redeeming work is done; Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won; Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids Him rise; Alleluia!
Christ has opened Paradise. Alleluia!

Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!
Following our exalted Head; Alleluia!
Made like Him, like Him we rise; Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies. Alleluia!

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Easter Card from Hymns of Faith Series by barbsbooks
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When Jesus was teaching, after healing several people, some of the religious leaders of the day asked to see a sign from Jesus that would indicate that he was really the Jewish Messiah (Anointed One, the Christ). He chastised them. After all, he had just healed a man with a withered hand, and they had gotten on his case for doing it on the Jewish Sabbath. Later that day he healed a blind and deaf man possessed by demons and they claimed that was no proof Jesus was the Son of God. They said he must have gotten his power from the devil, instead. He answered their charges in Matthew 12: 25-37, which you can read in your Bible. I am concerned here with the following verses in which Jesus tells them they will have no sign except the sign of Jonah.

As you might recall, Jonah was a reluctant prophet from the Old Testament whom God sent to preach in Nineveh -- one of the most corrupt and idolatrous cities of all time. God wanted him to call that great city to repent. Jonah refused to go because he was afraid if he did preach to them, they might repent, and that God might have mercy on them. They were the enemies of the Israelites, and he had been hoping God would wipe them out. (You should read the book of Jonah. It's a great story of how God reached out to save a wicked city from his own judgment by giving them a chance to repent.) Jonah got on a ship to go the opposite direction from Nineveh, and God brought a great storm that threatened everyone on the ship. Jonah knew he was the reason and offered to be thrown overboard to save the ship. He was swallowed by a great fish and was in its belly for three days and three nights. He prayed to God for deliverance and then the fish threw him up. Jonah was given a second chance to fulfill his mission to Nineveh, and this time he went and preached, and the people repented and God had mercy on them. Jonah was very unhappy about that, but you'll have to read Jonah to see how God dealt with him.

Jesus told the religious leaders who wanted the sign that the only sign they would get was the sign of Jonah. He told them that as Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights, so would he, the Son of Man, be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. Here is the rest of what he told them:

12:41 The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. 12:42 The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.

So Jesus used the analogy or symbol of Jonah (Jonas) to refer to his future death and resurrection. Text quoted was from the King James Bible

From the King James Bible:

2:13 And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, 2:14 And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: 2:15 And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; 2:16 And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise. 2:17 And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.

2:18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? 2:19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. 2:20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? 2:21 But he spake of the temple of his body. 2:22 When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.

This is not the last time the human body is compared to a temple. In his letters to the Corinthian church Paul often reminds the Christians that their bodies are temples of God because his spirit dwells in them. In the passage above, Jesus uses the symbol of the temple not as the physical building out of which he had just chased the moneychangers who were cheating people, but as the dwelling place of his spirit in human beings.

The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. 12:24 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. 12:25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. 12:26 If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour.

Jesus likens himself here to the grain of wheat which, after it is buried, later rises from the ground as a living plant which will bear fruit (more wheat). God's purpose for that grain of wheat is not fulfilled until it is dead and buried. Without the burial, it will not live again, nor can it bear fruit. The grain of wheat is probably the best analogy of the three I have spoken of here, and is the easiest to use as a symbol.