When was Jesus Crucified?

The Bible does not specifically state which day of the week Jesus was crucified. The two most widely held views are Friday and Wednesday. Some, however, using a synthesis of both the Friday and Wednesday arguments, accept Thursday as the day. Jesus said in Matthew 12:40, "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." Those who argue for a Friday crucifixion say that there is still a valid way in which He could have been considered in the grave for three days. In the Jewish mind of the First Century, a part of day was considered as a full day. Since Jesus was in the grave for part of Friday, all of Saturday, and part of Sunday—He could be considered to have been in the grave for three days. One of the principal arguments for Friday is found in Mark 15:42 that notes that Jesus was crucified "the day before the Sabbath." If that was the weekly Sabbath, i.e. Saturday, then that fact leads to a Friday crucifixion. Another argument for Friday says that verses such as Matthew 16:21 and Luke 9:22 teach that Jesus would rise on the third day; therefore, He wouldn't need to be in the grave a full three days and nights. But while some translations use "on the third day" for these verses, not all do and not everyone agrees that that is the best way to translate these verses. Furthermore, Mark 8:31 says that Jesus will be raised "after" three days.

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Taken from GotQuestions.org

The Mystery of Suffering

Great is the mystery of suffering; yet this much we know: suffering is in the very warp and woof of the slow progress of mankind from ''the vanity of time to the riches of eternity,'' so deeply interwoven into the stuff of things that the very Captain of our salvation, in order to be ''made like unto His brethren'' had to be ''made perfect through suffering.'' Borne rebelliously it ''works death''; borne courageously it purifies; borne vicariously it helps to redeem.

All men taste of it, the innocent with the guilty; but not till the Creator was crucified was there placed within reach of a groaning and groping humanity, not indeed the full explanation of suffering, but at least the key to its transmutation: we have to learn that faith transforms the messenger of Satan into the means of grace: that believers are to glory in tribulations, count trials all joy, because all things work together for good to them that love God: and that God's soldiers are to see in their crosses the mystery of the birth-process, whereby death works in us, but life in others, for only the corn of wheat which falls into the ground and dies bears ''much fruit.''

-''Alfred Buxton of the Congo and Abyssinia'' by Norman Grubb