Dr. John Bergsma | Jesus, Melchizedek, and the Jubilee | 2022 Applied Biblical Studies Conference

foreign [Music] [Music] Ted to uh my older sister in Christ Mary uh my big sister she's such a comfort to me when I feel like I'm spit up and shoot out by the biblical establishment I go to her for comfort I feel like she got my back um and she laid down uh the foundation uh for our looking at the Jubilee and we're gonna go over some of the same territory but looking at different aspects of it as well as look at look at some further texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls and elsewhere that really help us to get further into the meaning of this great year of Freedom so Dr Healy looked at this key text from Leviticus 25 you shall count seven weeks of years seven times seven years so 49 years now notice all the sevens right and uh as as Dr Han has planned out many times you know we say that 7 is the number of completion or it's a sacred number that's rather Bland it's true but it's just kind of Lies there it's really something more specific than that seven is the number of Covenant right so in the Hebrew language uh one of the words for oath is a form of the word seven Shava okay and uh why is that and to swear an oath in Hebrew is nishva it's a what they what Scholars call the nif all form where it's a middle passive it means to do something to yourself seven times well why would you know sevening yourself be the number or be the verb for Covenant making in Hebrew well it comes from the practice of performing an action seven times in order to solemnize it and so in in ancient Israelite Society you would speak a sacred promise seven times or perform an action seven times and that made it not just a promise but an oath and we see that in Genesis 21 where Abraham and uh the local King abimelech they exchange seven you Lambs in order to swear an oath to one another and form a covenant and what is covenant well we all know this as well Covenant is a family formed by oath swearing all right so you want to become family member of someone who's not related to you by Blood you swear an oath to them and you form a family now the Jubilee was the culmination of Israel's Liturgical Calendar okay we find in Leviticus 25 the liturgical calendar explanation Leviticus begins back in chapter 23 and it begins with the festival which is the shortest duration which is the weekly Sabbath and then it builds up uh to uh festivals that you celebrate on an annual basis and then ultimately a super annual basis in other words uh festivals that you celebrate on cycles of multiple years and the the one Great Festival that had the longest period of duration was the Jubilee so it was like the culmination of the whole liturgical calendar of Israel all comes together the greatest feast and this is the the Year of Jubilee so of course this is all based on God's covenant with the people of Israel and so we see these multiples of sevens seven times seven years four to ninety years it's like Sabbath squared okay Covenant squared and then you celebrate Jubilee so all these ideas of family and of uh restoration and forgiveness that Dr Healy was telling us about teaching us about all comes to all comes to fruition at this time you shall hallow the 50th year and Proclaim thank you Proclaim Liberty throughout the land it shall be a jubilee for you each of you shall return um by the way this line from Leviticus 25 10 this is on the Liberty Bell down in Philly actually you should Proclaim Liberty throughout the land so our country you know our whole our whole ethos has been shaped by these biblical Concepts you ever notice how our Capital by the way you know Washington DC it's surrounded on three sides by Maryland right and then underneath it is Virgin yeah you know you think the blessed mother doesn't have some special purpose for the U.S I think she does amen in these deep biblical concepts are really present kind of despite despite some of the uh Tendencies of our founding fathers so the the Jubilee was all about Covenant was Covenant fruition where's the other book of the Bible where we we find seven upon seven upon seven where's that [Music] um Book of Revelation right all those sevens of sevens it says what's that all about in The Book of Revelation well it's all Covenant fulfillment that's all the repetitions of sevens there are teaching us Covenant culmination because that's where everything wraps up and likewise the Jubilee was the culmination of the liturgical calendar so seven upon seven everything is coming together and as Dr Healy so uh well pointed out this released everyone from debt released everyone from servitude so everybody could go home to their ancestral property and be reunited to their family and be restored to freedom and uh and so what were they gonna what are they gonna do you know when all these alienated cousins and Sons and so on come you know wandering back from where they've been exiled or enslaved Etc and get back to the family property what are you gonna do well have a cookout of course so I just see that the you know the the day of atonement because this was on the day of atonement and that's very important because you see how this happens first forgiveness of sin is affected first that that um uh that relationship with God is restored through the forgiveness of sin and then relationships between human beings are likewise restored that was the principle of Jubilee excuse me it's proclaimed on the day of atonement but notice what comes first comes reconciliation with God then comes reconciliation with other human beings we get this concept so the Year of Jubilee was this as Dr Healy point out a socio-economic expression of a spiritual reality you know what our problem in America is we get the cart before the horse we're trying to reconcile all of uh you know people of diverse backgrounds Etc without being concerned at all with reconciliation with God okay but divine revelation gets it right in divine revelation insists that one first needs to experience forgiveness of God then one can share that forgiveness that one has experienced with your fellow human beings the vertical takes precedent okay and as long as we're see we're seeking for purely political purely materialistic solutions to our problems you know trying to do what the U.N does which is reconcile people without worrying about reconciliation with God is never going to work has it been working no okay so what should we do well try the same thing again and hope for different results right that's smart that always works so we keep doing this but no meanwhile the scriptures are crying out to us you got to be reconciled with God first reconciliation with God then the peace which is established in the human heart can spread into society we try to establish peace in society without worrying about the human heart and it doesn't work it's not going to work okay so understand that so the the it's the the theological is primary so they have these cookouts you know so I see I see the you know the day of atonement the Year of Jubilee and you're looking out over the Israelite Countryside you have Rolling Hills and what they call the shephala you know and you got the the mountain range there and you got the Seacoast down there and you're looking out and also you see smoke Rising from all over well he's and what is that that's the charcoal grills you know they're having they're having lamb chops you know and and beef bratwurst right not pork bratwurst don't be beef beef bratwurst you know it's they're grilling you know charcoal no gas grills gas grills are toe VA that's an Abomination right okay it wasn't I learned a grill in downtown Grand Rapids down in the hood we did not use gas grill we had I can't even say what we we call people that use gas grills I mean what's what's the point of that you just cook inside if you want to cook on gas just go in your kitchen you got a gas stove in your kitchen you can go inside what's that you know that takes no skill it's like hunting with an automatic weapon I mean like what's the point no charcoal so the ancient Israelites it's very pure it's charcoal you know so you know throw those Burgers on there throw those lamb chops on there let's celebrate okay because it's a day of atonement so he had all that wonderful smell of uh Grill and meat all over in its family it's family restoration and that's what Dr Han so uh so uh accurately pointed out you know and and I'm right with him this is something I addressed in my dissertation this abuse of the Jubilee to argue for some kind of communist or socialist Utopia the problem with that is communism and socialism always or always ignores the family when the Jubilee was fundamentally family oriented and I've I've been you know father Louis morozny is going to be speaking at this conference I've talked with him about this even asked him to write something about this but uh we got to start talking about the socio-economic impact of the family that say for for example marriage and family policy is a matter of social justice okay we've conceded the whole social justice argument to people that want to have big Government Solutions and throw a lot of money at the problem you know we've been throwing money at the problem since Lyndon Baines Johnson okay has it worked do we have a great society no we don't we have we have a miserable Society is what we got and we keep throwing more money and we keep printing more money and throwing more money and what do we not talk about we don't talk about chastity you know Chastity is a social justice issue not fathering children that you're not going to take care of okay entering into the Covenant bonds before you begin to raise a family okay marriage is a social justice issue biggest predictor of poverty in America fatherlessness okay we don't talk about that that's not politically correct okay but we can't concede that issue okay we've got to bring the family back into front and center okay the the family as a socio is as a social justice issue and even apart from Material wealth it's psychological okay we have all these broken families when you grow up not being assured that you are the product of love between your father and mother that the two persons that brought you into the world loved each other and you were the fruit of their love see that leads to psychological Health amen and that's what the scourge of divorce and all broken homes and Casual sexuality what that does is it it raises up a generation where you know am I loved am I the fruit of Love why am I here you know am I the product of a drunken bout you know all this kind of thing and uh and even if you do well you know even if you make money and you know are successful by external uh measures you have that disorder inside you have that lack of Health that lack of wholeness because you're not assured of that we don't even talk about that but the Jubilee was all about family the Jubilee was all about making sure that the family stayed intact that we didn't have broken families due to the father being enslaved and we didn't have fatherlessness due to a man being alienated from his family and having to work for somebody else uh for for slave wages and uh all of that so it ensured and insured land so the family had a place for itself a place where they could bury their ancestors and could remember their grandparents Etc remember their family history the Jubilee was all oriented to that and that's what that's what so many scholars don't want to talk about when they when they discussed the Jubilee they want to talk about some kind of socialist redistribution they don't want to talk about family and land and tradition these things that really lead to psychological and spiritual health well let's move on talk about this as Dr Healy pointed out the Israelites at best were inconsistent about observing the Jubilee and it became an issue in their relationship with God it was a manifestation of their larger pattern of Covenant breaking and so in second chronicles 36 20 near the end of the history of Israel as a monarchy we read about King bab the king of Babylon Nebuchadnezzar who took into Exile in Babylon those who escaped from The Sword until the establishment of the King of Persia to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had enjoyed its sabbaths all the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath to fulfill 70 years so God waited and over a period of roughly 500 years they did not keep the Sabbath year they did not keep the Jubilee and as it were these things are adding up and at that end of that period God sent as judgment upon them the Babylonian Army which took them Exile and they left the land and then finally the land had its rest okay there's also an ecological Dimension to the Sabbath year and the Jubilee allowing nature to rest and the Israelites had robbed nature of its opportunity to rest they had violated the natural order and so that natural order needs to need to be restored so they were removed for the land so the land could recoup its rest and roughly the time that they were in Babylonian exile 70 years corresponded to the Sabbath years that they failed to keep okay so this is something to think about you know when we fail to rest to honor God God sometimes has to send us something that makes us rest okay it's like illness or unemployment or inability to work or whatever you know there's a kind of a natural Rhythm to this when we violate the created order by refusing to take God's opportunities and his commands to rest it comes back to us it it boomerangs on us and this was the case with the people of Israel and so that period of Exile between roughly uh you know 597 and Route 527 BC when they were experiencing Exile at the hands of the Babylonians was this time of rest of the land and this violation of the Sabbath year and the Jubilee caused the prophets to enter more deeply into prayer and the Holy Spirit began to reveal to them that the the hopes and the expectations that were embedded in the Jubilee were going to be fulfilled in the latter days fulfilled in a time of completion which would be associated with the coming of the servant of the Lord who he later come to recognize as the Messiah and so we read in Isaiah 61 the spirit of the Lord is a God is upon me this is the servant of the Lord speaking in the first person because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor sent me to bind up the Brokenhearted to Proclaim Liberty to the captives and their there we have that key phrase cara de Roar which is kind of ancient Hebrew by the time of Isaiah the language of Leviticus was already like King James English is to us it sounded old-fashioned and out of date but Isaiah uses this old term cara de Roar to Proclaim Liberty to captives which for the listeners would heart to that ancient passage of Leviticus 25 about the Year of Jubilee and that's associated with the coming of the God's servant and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor we notice that as well another way of talking about the Jubilee year so Isaiah saw that this would be fulfilled but Isaiah does not give us a chronology about when it's going to be fulfilled the only Prophet who gives us a chronology for the Fulfillment of these Jubilee hopes is the Prophet Daniel and this isn't a key passage of of Daniel Daniel chapter 9. now in the context of Daniel 9 what's going on is that the Prophet Daniel is noticing that the uh the Babylonian oppression of the people of Israel is has come to an end and the Prophet Jeremiah said that this Babylonian oppression would end after 70 years and so Daniel notices that it's ended and yet the restoration of the people of Israel that Jeremiah predicted is not yet coming to be it's not coming to fruition and so Daniel enters into prayer and he begins to repent it's an intercessory prayer in Daniel 9. he steps forward like Moses of old and intercedes for the people of Israel and says Lord bring this bring these promises that you spoke through the Prophet Jeremiah bring them to fulfillment um even though we have not repented and this is key where are these Prophecies of restoration after the 70 years of Babylonian captivity they are in Jeremiah 25 and in Jeremiah 29 but the Prophet Jeremiah put a condition though he put a condition on the Fulfillment of that restoration after seven years he said if you repent if you seek the Lord with your whole heart and that was what was missing if you look in Daniel 9 Daniel 9 Daniel prays back to the Lord and says Lord all these punishments have fallen upon us our land has been taken away our city's been destroyed we've been taken out of Babylon and despite all of that we have still not repented and that Daniel sees as the reason why that promised fulfillment has not come about even though the 70 years of Babylon have clearly ended and so Daniel's praying there in Daniel 9 repenting on behalf of his people and then God in his Mercy sensitable Daniel Gabriel um the angel and Gabriel speaks to Daniel and says oh Daniel 70 weeks of years are decreed for your people and the holy city okay to finish the transgression to put an end to sin and to atone for iniquity to bring in Everlasting righteousness to seal both vision and profit and to anoint a Most Holy okay Most Holy what you ask well we'll come back to that from the going forth of the word to restore Jerusalem to the coming of a messiah a prince there shall be seven weeks in 62 weeks okay let's stop for a moment and break this down now notice first of all Daniel says there's going to be 70 weeks of years now Jeremiah had said 70 years Gabriel now comes and says no and actually it's going to be extended to 70 weeks of years okay 70 weeks of years that's 7 times 70. that is a period of 10 jubilees the do the Jubilee cycle in ancient Israel was 49 years long because the 50th year was the Jubilee but just like our in our octaves okay the Eighth Day of the Easter octave is also the first day of the next weekly cycle so likewise in ancient Israel the 50th year the Jubilee year was also the first year of the next cycle so these Jubilee years fell at a distance of 49 years from each other and so a jubilee cycle was 49 years long so 70 weeks of years is 10 jubilees and there was an expectation among the ancient people of Israel that a a set of ten Jubilee Cycles was sacred it was like a great Jubilee and God would bring a great Act of Deliverance after that time and we see that that's exactly what the angel Gabriel is predicting but as long as we're on this do we remember anywhere else in Scripture excuse me where we have this reference to 70 times seven yeah okay a bet for a lot of us who never like made that connection but when Peter comes to our Lord and says Lord how many times shall I forgive using the word afyami which is forgiveness in Greek but offiasis or forgiveness was how Jubilee language was translated in the ancient Greek Septuagint um with re with reference to Leviticus 25. so that language of forgiveness harks back to that chapter and the Lord of course says not seven times but 70 times 7. so that's a great Jubilee that's a period of ten Jubilee cycles and so the angel Gabriel is telling uh Daniel it's going to be this extended period of time to do what finish transgression put an end to sin atone for iniquity bring in Everlasting righteousness those are all things that our Lord accomplished on the cross to seal both vision and profit that means basically to close the Canon of scripture it's another thing that happened in the New Covenant and to anoint a kodesh kodeshim in Hebrew tonight A a holy of holies or a Most Holy now there's no further noun in the Hebrew so this could mean a Most Holy place which would be the temple okay to anoint a temple or this could be a Most Holy person which would be the Messiah so which is it Temple or Messiah Temple Messiah Temple Messiah great to you know taste great less filling what is it well both okay see all of the above okay because in the Fulfillment of this prophecy we're going to discover that the most holy person that is the Messiah is also the most holy Place John 2 21 he spoke of the Temple of his body right it says Christ's body as a fulfillment of the temple he is both Temple and Messiah and then verse 25 from the going forth of the word to restore Jerusalem to the coming of a messiah an anointed one a prince there shall be seven weeks and 62 weeks now this is not how your English translations read probably all of your English translations read something like from the going forth of the word to restore Jerusalem to the coming of Isaiah there shall be seven weeks and for 62 weeks it will be rebuilt etc etc your English translations follow the Hebrew masoretic text in its punctuation but the punctuation of the Hebrew masoretic text was not put in until about the year 700 A.D okay if you go back to the ancient versions The Greek and the Syriac and all the other different translations of the Old Testament that were made before the masoretic uh punctuation I don't want to get sidetracked off into what the masoretic is but this the maserites were a school of scribes that flourished around Galilee the the Sea of Galley from around the years 788 to about 1080 and they're the ones that for the first time devised a way to write down vowels in Hebrew and to punctuate Hebrew and so they wrote down their oral tradition at that later date but when we go back earlier into the time of our Lord and before the tower Lord into the centuries BC uh we're talking about a Hebrew language that's being written without vowels and without punctuation and all of the ancient versions that we have that were translated in Antiquity long before the mass direct text was established by the Jewish scribes combine the seven and the 62 weeks and so the Messiah comes after 69 weeks that is to say at the end of this roughly 500 year period of time the Messiah will come and then accomplish these things all right what is what is Gabriel doing here well Daniel saw that Jeremiah had predicted 70 years of punishment for the people of Israel under Babylon during which time the land would recoup its sabbaths but despite that 70-year punishment the the uh expected repentance of which Jeremiah speaks did not come about and there's a principle in the law of Moses that if you're disciplined and you do not repent you will be disciplined Sevenfold So we find this in Leviticus chapter 26 if by this discipline which included Exile you are not turned to me I will Smite you Sevenfold for your sins so Gabriel is coming to the Prophet Daniel in Daniel 9 with a kind of bad news good news message the bad news is Daniel the restoration that you're praying for it's not going to happen immediately the good news is it is going to happen but it's going to be delayed by a factor of seven so the 70 years of Babylon are going to become a roughly 500 year period during which the people of Judah are not going to be fully restored they're going to in a sense continue in Exile they're going to continue with a kind of ongoing Exile oppressed by their enemies without a son of David on the throne as Daniel mentions All This calamity has come upon us yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord Our God turning from our iniquities and giving heed to thy truth the repentance that Jeremiah makes contingent on the restoration of the people has not taken place so as uh Gabriel says 70 weeks of years are decreed for your people in holy city to finish all of these things and to bring to culmination God's saving plan and so Daniel is the only one who gives us this chronology and so roughly from the time of Daniel we're expecting the Messiah to come about 500 years later and of course that brings us to the time of our Lord and this is why there is such Messianic fervor during the time of Jesus and it wasn't just surrounding our Lord but if you read in the ancient Jewish historian Josephus you'll discover that there are many Messianic Pretenders and some of them are referred to even in for example the book of Acts as men rose up and claimed to be the Messiah and many others that are of course not mentioned and why why all this Messianic activity around the first century and really not before and really not later it was because of the chronology of Daniel now during that key uh period of time at the end of BC and the beginning of A.D we had the flourishing of a Jewish Monastery on the shores of the Dead Sea that was part of the larger movement within Judaism called the essene movement that was comparable in size to the Pharisees or the Sadducees this SE movement was a Holiness movement they were an eschatological movement they expected the Messiah to come anytime soon it was an aesthetical movement they practice a lifestyle of self-denial they alone practice celibacy among the different groups of Jews and of course we know about them because they left us the Dead Sea Scrolls the Dead Sea Scrolls are the remains of the Thousand volumes that made up their library at the monastery that they maintained on the shores of the Dead Sea and one of the last Scrolls to be found and one of the most intriguing is a scroll that Scholars call 11q Melchizedek and this is a prophecy that circulated among the essenes the ancient Jewish historian Josephus tells us that the essenes were renowned for their prophets and so this prophetic document takes these different scriptures related to the Jubilee and interprets them uh concerning the coming of a savior figure so let's look at this concerning what the scripture says in this Year of Jubilee you shall return every one of you to your property okay so basically a basic line from the Jubilee law and what is also written this is the manner of their mission every creditor shall remit the claim that is held against his neighbor because God's remission has been proclaimed that's Deuteronomy 15. Dr Healy mentioned this this was the Forgiveness of debt law that we find in Deuteronomy so this essene author combines these release laws together and then interprets them and says the interpretation is that it applies to the last days okay the latter days about which Isaiah speaks this air this end times and it concerns the captives just as Isaiah said to proclaim the Jubilee to the captives Isaiah 61. so Essen author brings in Isaiah here it's brilliant because modern critical Scholars acknowledge that all these texts are in fact connected in in a kind of a literary tradition and this ancient essene author is you know pulling them together even from the inheritance of Melchizedek for they are the inheritance of Melchizedek who will return to them what is rightfully theirs he will Proclaim to them the Jubilee thus releasing them from the debt of all their sins oh this is fascinating so melchizedek's going to come back why on Earth Melchizedek where did he come from well that's always the question it's like you know melchizedek's like the biblical Spider-Man where are you coming from you know like we used to sing with the electric company in elementary school where Spider-Man where are you coming from you know where's Melchizedek coming from that's the 50 million dollar question in biblical uh theology Melchizedek just shows up in Genesis 14 and you could rightly ask why on Earth does this essene author connect ideas of Jubilee will Phil kizedek well if you go back to Genesis 14 what you find out is the Babylonians or the Mesopotamians including the you know people associated with what later became Babylon came into the land of Israel and they took lot and his family and many others captive right so this is like a foreshadowing of the Babylonian captivity these Mesopotamian Kings took them captive and started to run off with them and then Abraham came and liberated them and then after he liberated them from captivity and from bondage he brought these liberated people back and Melchizedek blessed everybody and so melchizedek's associated with this Liberation from being enslaved and from being held captive and uh and he was also a legitimate priest and King so uh Abraham worked this kind of Jubilee for a lot and for many others and it was associated with the Priestly Ministry of Melchizedek so this essene author looks into the future and sees Melchizedek coming back not to release everyone from monetary debt but to release them from the debt of sin and then he goes on this word will thus come in the first week of the Jubilee period that follows nine Jubilee periods okay so we're working on these 10 jubilees of Daniel 9. then the day of atonement shall follow at the end of the 10th Jubilee period This is the end of the 490 years predicted by Daniel look at how he's combining all these scriptures together when he excuse me when he's speaking of Melchizedek shall atone for all the sons of Light that's a that's a phrase that sons of Light is a phrase that we find in John and in Paul uh but even before them we find it in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the people who are predestined to Melchizedek so this great atonement for sin is going to happen at the end of this 490 years roughly 500 year period foreseen by Daniel and that is going to be the time decreed for the year of melchizedek's favor now Isaiah 61 2 says the year of the Lord's favor but notice how Melchizedek is put in here in place of the Lord and for his hosts together with the Holy ones of God for a kingdom of Justice or Kingdom of judgment just as is written concerning him in the songs of David God has taken his place in the counsel of God in the midst of the Angels he holds judgment look at that Psalm 82 9 is quoted by this ancient author as referring to Melchizedek okay and um this the the reference to God in Psalm 82 1 is taken as a reference to the figure of Melchizedek so Melchizedek is somehow Divine in this prophetic writing from the essenes and he goes on therefore Melchizedek will thoroughly prosecute the Vengeance required by God statutes in that day he will deliver them from the power of Belial this is the essene term for Satan and from the power of all the spirits predestined to him so it's delivery not from Human slavery but again From Slavery to Belial or Satan and then further prophecies are applied to Melchizedek it is written concerning him who says to Zion your god reigns that's Isaiah 52 7 Zion In this passage is the sons of righteousness who uphold the Covenant and turn from walking in the way of the people that's probably a reference to the essene group that practiced repentance but then your God in Isaiah 52 7 is Melchizedek who will deliver them from the power of Belial Satan hey look at taking references to God and saying it's Melchizedek is is God referred to in Scripture concerning what scripture says then you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all the land of Israel goes back to Leviticus 25 9 and then our text breaks off so this is absolutely fascinating eschatological exegesis of the Jubilee year laws of Leviticus 25 bringing in a Divine Melchizedek who's going to you know actualize all these expectations at the end of the 500 year period predicted by the Prophet Daniel and now we come back to this sermon at Nazareth okay so imagine brothers and sisters 11 Q Melchizedek was this prophetic document that was circulating among the essenes the essenes according to Josephus were comparable in size to other sects of Jews like the Pharisee movement and the sadducee movement and Josephus tells us that there were essing communities in every major city of Israel all through the land everybody there was a there was an Essie neighborhood in any city of Israel of any significant size so everybody knew about the essenes they were like Baptists they're everywhere Okay so you knew about them and you knew about their expectations and um excuse me so uh and people you know just like we have a general sense of what Seventh-day Adventist believes or what what methodists believe or what Baptists believe so on so different groups of Jews had a sense for what was believed by these different groups everybody had a sense for what the essenes were expecting so Jesus comes to Nazareth where he had been brought up and he went to the synagogue as his custom was on the Sabbath day and he stood up to read and there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah okay well that's unexceptional because Isaiah was the favorite Prophet still is the favorite prophet Isaiah is the prophet that dominates the Jewish and the Christian liturgy and lectionary and always has for as long as we've had historical records Isaiah has been the most popular Prophet to read in worship so they get in the prophet Isaiah well that's unexceptional that's like a that's like a a you know a nice easy softball pitch here here you go here's Isaiah you know not going to give you anything difficult like Ezekiel or you know Zechariah or something like that you know let's give you Isaiah Isaiah is easy listening you know Isaiah's top 40. you know there's no can't go wrong with Isaiah so give him Isaiah it's nice nice applied you know find something nice to read from Isaiah you can have a nice easy homily he opened the book and find the place where is written the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has known me to preach good news to the poor semi to Proclaim released to Captain's recovery side to Blind to set at Liberty those are oppressed to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord Jesus opens up Isaiah and intentionally finds one of the most controversial passages in the whole prophetic book like come on visiting Rabbi just go with something easy like Isaiah 11 or something you know or go to Isaiah 9 and talk about you know one day the Messiah is going to come why go to Isaiah 61 which is quoted as extensively in this essing document and there's all this brouhaha going around within Judaism you know is Isaiah 61 really talking about the coming Melchizedek like the Essen say or is that a bunch of nonsense like the Sadducees say so he finds this controversial Passage that's associated with all these end times hopes from the S scenes we know that that Nazareth was kind of esseen sympathetic because archaeologists just two or three years ago you know doing doing research in the Nazareth Area found that they were practicing essing farming practices in the first century during the time that our Lord lived there they went down to the soil level and looked at the stuff in the soil found out they that they were farming according to the way that you know the essenes said you had to farm so the village of Nazareth seems to have been sympathetic with the SC movement and Jesus finds this controversial passage he reads it and everybody's in shock like he read that well what's he gonna say about it then he closed the book gave it back to the attendant and sat down now Brothers I never used to understand this passage at all because our homilists sit down when they're done preaching right so when Jesus sits down I think oh we're not going to have a homily at daily mass today right yeah but that's wrong because in the Jewish tradition you preached sitting down so when he sits down that means I am going to give a homily I'm not just going to read I'm going to expound so we are going to have a homily at today's you know daily mass at the synagogue so he sits down and now the people are electrified not only is he going to read that but he's going to preach on it so all the eyes of the synagogue were fixed on him yeah they're like what's he gonna say about this controversial passage that's associated with the coming of a Divine Meals kizedek by one of the largest movements within Judaism what does he say today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing that's the shortest most impactful daily mass homily you're ever gonna hear you know there's priests around that you say are the master the short homily right there's a Dominican priest up in Youngstown that frequently hears like you know he says he's mastered the three-minute homily but but you can't beat this what you're saying I'm the Fulfillment and that's the homily amen yeah I'm the Fulfillment brothers and sisters it's me let's talk about me yeah yeah I'm the one here yeah that's that's me it's that yeah um that's my biography right there that that Isaiah's talking about there okay wow so what so you Jesus of Nazareth whose Dad we know whose dad was a you know Craftsman and whose mom we know and he's got cousins in the village and stuff like that you are the Divine Melchizedek who's come to uh to inaugurate the eschatological Jubilee well wow that is a bold claim but you know what talk is cheap let's see your game bring on your game well what does Jesus do just a few verses later he goes down to Capernaum in the synagogue there there's a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon Cried Out ah what have you to do with us Jesus and Nazareth have you come to destroy us I know who you are the Holy One of God okay you're the Divine Melchizedek Jesus rebuked him be silent come out of him and he came out of him having done him no harm they were amazed said what is this word with authority and power He commands the unclean spirits and they come out and reports of him when are out from every place in the surrounding region I bet because not only is he claiming this but then he's proving it what did what did they say what did 11q milchizedek say it said that Melchizedek would free them from the power of Belial and this is what Jesus is doing he's exercising people he's doing what they expected the Divine Melchizedek to do all right so freeing him from the freeing people from the power of Satan that's one of the roles of the Melchizedek to come what else well the next chapter this is very intentional on Luke's part the very next chapter behold men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed but fighting no way to bring him in they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed into the midst before Jesus and when he saw their faith he said man your sins are forgiven you and the scribes and Pharisees begin to question saying who can forgive sins but God darn right that's the point God is Melchizedek is Jesus okay he is the Divine priest king who is to come freeing people from bondage to Satan and bondage to sin so look you know I used to think that the Gospel of Luke was written you know just to Gentile Christians and that's kind of a common thing and there's truth to that very very much truth it's many things in Luke are written in such a way that they're accessible and that they gain the trust and the admiration of people that were well educated in the Greco-Roman system but there's many dimensions to the Gospel of Luke and when I was working on my book on the Dead Sea Scrolls I found this connection that the beginning of Jesus's Ministry you know he our Lord fulfills what the essenes were expecting of the anointed Melchizedek at the end of time is that accidental can that be accidental I don't think it can be coincidental so there's many audiences I think the essings were one of the audiences to whom Luke was writing to show to them look Jesus of Nazareth meets the expectations that you have for the one he's going to inaugurate the end times Jubilee so they went up on the mountain well okay so great so Gs does this but like that was then this is now how is this going to be made permanent how is this going to extend Through Time well watch what our Lord does goes up the mountain called to him Those whom he desired they came to him he appointed 12 to be with him and he sent them out to preach and to have authority to cast out demons so he gives this Jubilee power of freedom from Satan to the twelve to be perpetuated in them and their successors and likewise in Matthew 18 he uh gathers the 12 together and he says whatever you bind at her shall be bound in heaven whatever he loose on your shall be loosed in heaven can't talk about all that this means but this includes among other things the power to forgive sin to forgive or to choose not to parallel with what John records receive the Holy Spirit if you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven if you retain the sins of any they are retained so that the two-fold power of the Divine Melchizedek who's going to inaugurate the eschatological Jubilee to free from slavery to Satan and from the debt of sin is manifested in Jesus early Ministry given to the apostles and to the successors to be perpetuated so that we're living In Perpetual Jubilee and I had a beautiful experience a couple of years ago I'll try to keep this super short I was in San Diego a lot of Chaldean Catholics in San Diego these are Iraqi Christians traditional Iraqi Christians in the Chaldean tradition have a beautiful Liturgy of their own and I was speaking at um John Paul the great University down there and they have a couple of Chaldean priests who also teach and one of them pulled me aside and he was like you know explain to me the beauty of their liturgy and and he said you know I just want to share with you some of the riches you know I know that your Old Testament scholar you're into Hebrew and so on and so he gave me a bunch of books about the Chaldean language and the Chaldean lectionary and spiritual traditions and he gave me one book on the Chaldean liturgy and he hand it to me and I took it and I looked at the title and chills began to go up and down my spine because of what I had worked on my dissertation on and I looked at the title and it was called Perpetual Jubilee that was how they describe their liturgy and in the Chaldean Rite the liturgical year is divided into units of seven weeks every liturgical season is seven weeks long culminating on a 50th day because they got it they saw it that the Liturgy of the New Covenant is the Fulfillment of these covenantal Jubilee expectations of the people of Israel so how is this perpetuated so how do I experience Jubilee well one of the through the sacraments ultimately and most poignantly through an a neglected sacrament the sacrament of reconciliation is any among you sick let him call for the president of the church let him pray over him the prayer of faith will save the sick man if he has committed sins he will be forgiven this is the early form of the sacrament of reconciliation when the presbyters we later call priests would pray over those who had sinned therefore confess your sins to one another that you may be healed the sacrament of reconciliation is one of the most direct ways that the church perpetuates Jubilee by freeing people from slavery to Satan and from the debt of sin father Gabriel amorth about whom a movie is being made right now with I believe Russell Crowe preparing to play the role of Father Moore this is going to be really interesting okay but father Morris has wrote in his book his 1999 book in Exodus tells the story many times I've written that Satan is much more enraged when we take Souls away from him through confession than when we take bodies away through exorcism you see uh confession has a spiritual warfare dimension okay confession is is the first lines in the church's battle against slavery to Satan amen and that's going to be the theme of my breakout talk so I'm not going to go any further with that for right now but if you come to the breakout talk uh this afternoon we're going to be talking about that spiritual warfare and confession and confession as as Liberation Liberation from the evil one and all that means in the biblical roots of that and it's pastoral implications but for right now we gotta wrap up look Israel's hopes for the Jubilee were fulfilled in Jesus Christ the New Covenant is the era of Perpetual Jubilee and this closet that we go into to open up our souls is not a courtroom it's not a judgment chamber it is Liberation amen amen let's pray praise the Lord praise the Lord amen

Channel: Steubenville Conferences

Views: 9,117

Keywords: Steubenville Conferences, Catholic, Franciscan University, Catholic Ministry, New Evangelization, Youth

Id: 6r6cT6rkS7E

Length: 56min 38sec (3398 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 13 2022