Per:Let's see what the verses say:But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas: 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. Matthew 12:39-40A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed. Matthew 16:4The only sign given them was three days and three nights, which I agree is 72 hours, in the heart of the earth. Make no mistake when the Bible says heart of the earth that it means after Jesus is in the tomb. Although someone brought up that maybe His Spirit was in the heart of the earth when He died at the 9th hour of the day , this would have been COMPLETELY invisible to anyone looking at His dead body upon the cross. A SIGN is exactly that, something that all that evil and adulterous generation could see. In fact, they sealed the tomb and posted guards starting Thursday morning to make sure He didn't come out after three days and three nights as He had predicted, or before. Or that his disciples didn't steal His body to make it look that way.Okay - Jonah was alive for three days and three nights inside of the whale so why not having Jesus be alive for part of the time in the tomb? Well, I don't see any scriptural evidence that when He came back to life He didn't immediately leave the tomb. Nor any scriptural need for Him to not immediately leave the tomb. And there is a great analogy that Jesus was actually dead for 3 and a half days like the two witnesses.And after three days and an half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. Revelation 11:11(Don't you just love the 11's in 11:11 - which tends to raise the importance of this scripture in my mind.)Also the analogy of Lazarus being dead four days, which three and a half days can be rounded in speech such as that made by Martha:Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.John 11:39Isn't it amazing that in the story of Lazarus, the other example in the Bible of someone rising from the dead, (actually there is an allusion made of rising from the dead of another Lazarus, a beggar, in a story by Jesus, that they won't even believe then, Luke 16:20), that Jesus talks of going to him and awaking him from his slumber in the 11th verse of the 11th chapter of the other book written by John?These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep. John 11:11Okay - now concerning another common misunderstanding. The Bible does not say Jesus had to be buried before sunset when the next day begins. What it says is the Pharisee's wanted him off the cross, off the tree before sunset, before the High Sabbath of their Passover, because "cursed is he that hangs on a tree".And if a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree: His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day; (for he that is hanged is accursed of God;) that thy land be not defiled, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance. Deuteronomy 21:22-23The 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. John 19:31The point of all this is that Jesus was probably pierced with the spear during the last hour before sunset and taken down from the cross soon afterward just before sunset. He was then wrapped like a mummy, as was the custom of the day, with strips of cloth glued together, like paper mache, using 100 pounds of their glue made from a mixture of myrrh (for smell) and aloes (for stickiness).And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight. John 19:39I don't know how many of you have made paper mache with consecutively wrapping something with paper strips, but it is not a quick process. To go through 100 pounds of glue while wrapping the body, took some time. I don't see how they could have finished wrapping him and laying in the tomb before sunset. (For the record, I can see a burial cloth laid down from His feet over His head, back down to His feet, such as purported in the Shroud of Turin, to which the sticky strips of cloth were wrapped around.) I put forth the case in the book, "Passion, Power & Glory" for a midnight burial, when He was finally layed to rest in the tomb, and have not changed my mind even with the analogy to the 3 1/2 days that the witnesses in Revelation lay dead. This 3 1/2 days can be rounded to midnight. Although this could also point to a burial either around 9 PM or around 3 AM, probably more strongly 3 AM even with Jesus' statement of 12 hours in a day. I still like the very strong analogy to the spirit of God coming at midnight at Passover in Egypt.Jesus was the first born, the first fruits to be taken. Which means - Those that participated in the burial of Jesus Christ BY LAW, could not participate in the coming up Firstfruits because they were ceremonially unclean. They had touched the body of a dead person. A special provision was made in the LAW to allow them to participate in the Second Firstfruits.He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days. Numbers 19:11We, who are Christians, have participated in the burial of our own sin nature, and the burial of Jesus Christ, symbolized in our water baptism, and touching His dead body symbolically when we partake of the Lord's Supper. We are ceremonially unclean and cannot participate in the coming up firstfruits. But Praise God! A special provision has been made for us to partake in the Second Firstfruits!-Shalom