The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 41: The Day of Atonement (2024)

Episode Date: February 10, 2024

Fr. Mike reveals the parallels between the day of atonement and the sacrifice of the mass. We learn how the temple worship practices of the old testament foreshadow the worship practices of the Catholic Church. Today's readings are Exodus 23, Leviticus 16, and Psalm 77. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Bible in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's voice and live life through the lens of Scripture. The Bible in a Year podcast is brought to you by Ascension. Using the Great Adventure Bible Timeline, we'll read all the way from Genesis to Revelation, discovering how the story of salvation unfolds and how we fit into that story today. This is day 41, so let's keep on going. Today, we're going to be reading from Exodus chapter 23, Leviticus chapter 16, and Psalm 77. So if you want to get your own printed out list or even just download it to your computer, you can go to

ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a year. You get your own Bible in a year reading plan so you can follow along with us. Hopefully by this point, you know, day 41, you're probably already squared away when it comes to subscribing to the podcast, wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, you probably know this already, but the Bible translation that I am reading from is the revised standard version, second Catholic edition. I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension, which is just a phenomenal Bible and is definitely worth waiting for it or ordering it or whatever you need to do when it comes to getting that great adventure Bible. But as I said, today,

we are going to go deeper into Exodus, Leviticus, and further along when it comes to the book of Psalms. Today is Exodus chapter 23, Leviticus 16, and Psalm 77. Exodus chapter 23, laws concerning justice. You shall not utter a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not follow a multitude to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a suit turning aside after a multitude so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his suit. If you meet your enemy's ox or his donkey going astray, you shall bring it back to him. If you see the donkey of one who hates you lying under its burden, you shall refrain from leaving him with it. You shall help him to lift it up. You shall not pervert the justice due to the poor in his suit. Keep far from a false charge and do not slay the innocent and righteous,

for I will not acquit the wicked. And you shall take no bribe, for a bribe blinds the officials and subverts the cause of those who are in the right. You shall not oppress a stranger. You know the heart of a stranger, for you are strangers in the land of Egypt. The sabbatical year and the Sabbath. For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat, and what they leave the wild beasts may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard and with your olive orchard. Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your maidservant and the alien may be refreshed. Take heed to all

that I have said to you, and make no mention of the names of other gods, nor let such be heard out of your mouth. Annual Feasts Three times in the year you shall keep a feast to me. You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread, as I commanded you, and you shall eat unleavened bread. You shall keep the feast of unleavened bread as I commanded you, and you shall eat unleavened bread for seven days at the appointed time in the month of Abib, for in it you came out of Egypt. None shall appear before me empty-handed. You shall keep the feast of harvest, of the first fruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the feast of ingathering at the end of the year when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor. Three times in the year shall all your males appear before

the Lord God. You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leavened bread or let the fat of my feast remain until the morning. The first of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord your God. You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk. The conquest of Canaan promised. Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place which I have prepared. Give heed to him and listen to his voice. Do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression, for my name is in him. But if you listen attentively to his voice and do all that I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries. When my angel goes before you and brings you into the Amorites and the Hittites

and the Perizzites and the Canaanites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, and I blot them out, you shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their works, but you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars in pieces. You shall serve the Lord your God, and I will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from the midst of you. None shall cast her young or be barren in your land. I will fulfill the number of your days. I will send my terror before you and will throw into confusion all the people against whom you shall come. And I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you.

And I will send hornets before you, which shall drive out Hivite, Canaanite, and Hittite from before you. I will not drive them out before you in one year, lest the land become desolate. In the wild beasts multiply against you. Little by little I will drive them out before you, until you are increased and possess the land. And I will set your bounds from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the wilderness to the Euphrates. For I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. You shall make no covenant

with them or with their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me. For if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you. Leviticus chapter 16, the day of atonement. The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they drew near before the Lord and died. And the Lord said to Moses, tell Aaron your brother not to come at all times into the holy place within the veil, before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark, lest he die. For I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat, but thus shall Aaron come into the holy place with a young bull for a sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. He shall put on the holy linen coat and shall have the

linen britches on his body, be girded with the linen sash and wear the linen turban. These are the holy garments. He shall bathe his body in water and then put them on. And he shall take from the congregation of the sons of Israel, two goats for a sin offering, and one ram for a burnt offering. And Aaron shall offer the bull as a sin offering for himself, and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. Then he shall take the two goats, and set them before the Lord at the door of the tent of meeting, and Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats, one lot for the Lord, and the other lot for Azazel. And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord and offer it as a sin offering. But the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may

be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel. Aaron shall present the bull as a sin offering for himself and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. He shall kill the bull as a sin offering for himself, and shall make atonement for himself and for his house. He shall kill the bull as a sin offering for himself. And he shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the Lord, and two handfuls of sweet incense, beaten small. And he shall bring it within the veil, and put the incense on the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat which is upon the covenant, lest he die. that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat which is upon the covenant, lest he die. And he shall take some of the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it with his finger on the front of the mercy seat, and before the mercy seat he shall sprinkle the blood with his finger seven times. Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering, which is for the people,

and bring the blood within the veil, and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, sprinkling it on the mercy seat and before the mercy seat. Thus he shall make atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the sons of Israel, and because of their transgressions, all their sins, and so he shall do for the tent of meeting, which abides with them in the midst of their uncleanness. There shall be no man in the tent of meeting

when he enters to make atonement in the holy place, until he comes out and has made atonement for himself and for his house and for all the assembly of Israel. Then he shall go out to the altar, which is before the Lord, and make atonement for it, and shall take some of the blood of the bull and the blood of the goat and put it on the horns of the altar round about, and he shall sprinkle some of the blood upon it with his finger seven times to cleanse it and to hallow it from the uncleannesses of the blood upon it with his finger seven times to cleanse it and to hallow it from the uncleannesses of the sons of Israel. And when he has made an end of atoning

for the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat and Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat and confess over him all the iniquities of the sons of Israel and all their transgressions, all their sins, and he shall put them upon the head of the goat, and send him away into the wilderness by the hand of a man who is in readiness. The goat shall bear all their iniquities upon him to a solitary land, and he shall let the goat go in the wilderness. Then Aaron shall come into the tent of meeting, and shall put off the linen garments which he had put on when he went into the holy place, and he shall leave them there. And he shall bathe his body in water in a holy place, and put on his garments, and come forth, and offer his burnt offering, and the burnt offering of the people, and make atonement for himself and for the people.

And the fat of the sin offering he shall burn upon the altar. And he who lets the goat go to Azazel shall wash his clothes, and bathe his body in water, and afterwards he shall burn upon the altar. And he who lets the goat go to Azazel shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterwards he may come into the camp. And the bull for the sin offering, and the goat for the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall be carried forth outside the camp, their skin and their flesh and their dung shall be burned with fire. And he who burns them shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water. And afterwards he may come into the camp. And it shall be a statute to you forever that in the seventh month, on the 10th day of the month, you shall afflict yourselves and shall do no work, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you.

For on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you from all your sins. You shall be clean before the Lord. It is a Sabbath of solemn rest to you, and you shall afflict yourselves. It is a statute forever. And the priest who is anointed and consecrated as priest in his father's place shall make atonement, wearing the holy linen garments. He shall make atonement for the sanctuary, and he shall make atonement for the tent of meeting, and for the altar, and he shall make atonement for the priests, and for all the people of the assembly. And this shall be an everlasting statute for you, that atonement may be made for the sons of Israel once in the year, because of all their sins. And Moses did as the Lord commanded him.

And Moses did as the Lord commanded him. Psalm 77 God's mighty deeds were called to the choir master, according to Jeduthun, a psalm of Asaph. I cry aloud to God, aloud to God that he may hear me. In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord. In the night my hand is stretched out without wearying. My soul refuses to be comforted.

I think of God and I moan. I meditate and my spirit faints. You keep my eyelids from closing. I am so troubled that I cannot speak. I consider the days of old. I remember the years long ago. I commune with my heart in the night. I meditate and search my spirit. Will the Lord spurn forever and never again be favorable?

Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion? And I say, it is my grief that the right hand of the Most High has changed. I will call to mind the deeds of the Lord. Yes, I will remember your wonders of old. I will meditate on all your work and muse on your mighty deeds. Your way, O God, is holy. What God is great like our God?

You are the God who works wonders, who have manifested your might among the peoples. With your arm, you redeemed your people, the sons of Jacob and Joseph. When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid. Yes, the deep trembled. The clouds poured out water. The skies gave forth thunder. Your arrows flashed on every side. The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind. Your lightnings lighted up the world. The earth trembled and shook.

Your way was through the sea. Your path through the mighty waters. Yet your footprints were unseen. You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. Father, you are good and you do lead us. We thank you for your word. We thank you for calling us your own.

Thank you for making us your own. And thank you for giving yourself to us that we can not only know who you are, infinite in your might and infinite in your goodness and your love, but also so that we can know who we are. So that we can know not only your rule, but also can be in the depth of relationship with you. And so today we call upon the name of your son, Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of

God. And we just, in his name, father in heaven, we thank you in the name of Jesus Christ. We praise you in the name of Jesus Christ. We ask you to continue to be with us now and always. Amen. In the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy spirit. Amen. Wow.

and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Wow. So today, again, there's so much beauty in God's word for us today. In Exodus chapter 23 today, not only did we hear about the laws concerning justice, again, this extension of yesterday and how we talked about laws of restitution and social and religious laws that is like harmonious living, right? So not only laws concerning justice, one thing to note about this, we'll see this again and again when it comes to the Old Testament and when it comes to its fulfillment in the New Testament, is not only are the people of Israel commanded to be just, they're commanded to be fair, they're also commanded to be just and fair in dealing with those who are poor. There's this temptation I think a lot of us may have. One is a double temptation, possibly, or maybe even a dichotomy. One is to do injustice to those who are poor because they're

poor, because they're helpless, because they're weak, and because they can't fight back. The other is to forsake justice for the sake of the poor, because they're poor, because they're weak, and because they can't fight back. And scripture points out both of those are incorrect. To do injustice for the sake of the poor is condemned. And also to do injustice against the poor is condemned. And that's such an incredible, beautiful balance because you'd imagine here are the people of Israel. They're getting the law for the first time. This is a new law. They've never experienced this ever before in their lives that you can imagine those who would see like, oh gosh, here is the Lord God. He's a God of justice. In that case, he must have a preferential

option for those who are poor. In fact, there is a thing called the preferential option for the poor that we as Catholic Christians do have, but not to the point where we do injustice for the sake of the poor. And that is remarkable that here we are right as soon as the people of Israel are set free from their being poor, from their bondage, from their slavery. God is saying both, I know the hardness of your heart and I know the softness of your heart, right? I know the hardness of your heart that you might want to get away with whatever you can against the poor, but I also know the softness of your heart and the compassion that might

lead you to do evil for the sake of those who are oppressed. And just that balance is so, so incredibly wise, right? It's almost as if God himself knows human nature. Wow. Who would have imagined? But if we keep going on, what we see is also in Exodus 23, we see the first hint at the three major feasts, three major festivals of worshiping God that arise in Israel's life. So in Exodus chapter 23, verse 14, we talk about Passover. You should keep the feast of unleavened bread. That's Passover. Then in Exodus chapter 16, we have the feast of the harvest, which is also known as the feast of Pentecost. It is the 50 days after the feast of unleavened bread. So as we know as Catholic Christians,

that 50 days after Easter, 50 days after the resurrection, we have the Feast of Pentecost as well. And the third feast is the Feast of Ingathering or the feast where it says you shall keep the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year when you gather in the field, from the field, the fruit of your labor. Three times in the year, all your males shall appear before the Lord your God. And that third feast is the Festival of Tabernacles. So you have the first festival of Passover, which we're very familiar with because it's completely very associated with Good Friday and with Holy Thursday and with all of Easter, the Triduum. We have the feast of weeks or Pentecost or harvest, which is very familiar

to us as well because of the fact that we celebrate Pentecost as Catholic Christians and the third festival of ingathering or the festival of tabernacles. And that might be the one that we are least familiar with. But it's interesting because here are the three times where all Jewish males would be required to go up to Jerusalem and to worship God in the way that we hear described in the book of Leviticus, which is going to be really remarkable. And just, I mean, just because here we are doing this together, right? So in the book of Leviticus and the book of Exodus, we see this context that is so good for us to be able to take in pretty soon.

We're going to get to Leviticus chapter 23. We're going to hear some more about the details of those festivals. But today we actually heard about a fourth festival in Leviticus chapter 16. In Leviticus chapter 16, we heard about the day of atonement or Yom Kippur. Now, Yom Kippur is not one of those three major feasts, but it is definitely, definitely a solemn festival. Happens at the end of September. And it's a time that you can see how it plays out. It's a time for not only remembering past sins, but also for making amends, for coming before the Lord and asking for his forgiveness.

It is the only day of fasting that actually is decreed in the Bible, the day of Yom Kippur. And so how did this happen? Well, we just heard the description. We have the high priest, in this case was Aaron, and he would bring a number of animals. In this particular moment, he would take the goat, known as the scapegoat, right? And over the head of this goat, he would lay his hands

and he would declare the sins of the people of Israel. And then someone would be designated to lead that goat into the wilderness where it would die, basically kind of carrying away the sins of the people. Now, two things. One is it says, delivered that goat to Azazel. And we're like, what's Azazel? Who is Azazel? And the answer is kind of a mystery in the sense that there are some extra biblical writings that describe this Azazel as a demon, essentially as the leader of the fallen angels in some ways. Is it the same character as Lucifer? I'm not sure. Why would this demon have any part at all to play in this goat being delivered to this demon? And the answer to that is, I do not know. We're going to continue to study scripture and try to figure this out. When I say I don't

know, it's I know theories, but I don't know the actual answer. And so I have to apologize. That's my ignorance. I do know that some theories about this, about why Azazel and what role that would be, that this demon would have in when it comes to this day of atonement. But since those theories are just theories and they're not necessarily established in dogma, I am not going to weigh in on it because I know enough not to weigh in on stuff I don't necessarily know about. The second thing about this beyond Azazel is this is the goat, the scapegoat that carries the sins of the people. And this is one of the things that we see in Leviticus. This is something so important because I think when we're reading Leviticus or as we continue to read Exodus and getting to Numbers and Deuteronomy, we're going to find in all of these books, a gap between us and them. We're going to

find what feels like this gap between, oh, that's how they lived back then. That's how they worshiped back then. That's how they were in relationship with God back then. But now we don't have anything like that anymore. And the truth is we absolutely do. All of this is a foreshadowing. It's a preparation for what you and I are doing on a daily basis, especially on a weekly basis when it comes to the sacrifice of the mass, because who is Jesus? Well, he is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. What is the priest doing when he offers up the Eucharist? He's offering up the great sacrifice of the lamb of God to the glory of the father, to

the father on behalf of the people. And so please, my invitation is as we continue to journey through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, these are the critical books, critical, critical books that I'm going to invite you, even if I don't make the connection on a daily basis in this kind of guide portion of our reading the Bible, if you can strive to make that connection for yourself between what the people of Israel were commanded to do back then and what you and I as Catholic Christians are commanded to do right now. It is the preparation of God's people to worship him as he has asked to be worshiped. And that's what we're doing. That was the foreshadowing. That

was the preparation. What you and I are doing is it is the fulfillment. And yet at the same time, we know that it's not completely fulfilled because the worship of God through the lamb, through the son of God who was slain but exists forever is happening right now. And we only can participate in it through a veil, right? Through that mystery that we don't get to see the reality of Jesus Christ on the altar being lifted up to the glory of the father. We do see it substantially and we do participate in it substantially, but it's still covered in mystery. It's still true. It is the actual sacrifice of the Lamb of God

to the Father for the people. My goodness, what a gift. And that's my invitation. Again, as we read through these four books, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, every time it gets weird, every time it seems so strange and so foreign, realize, no, no, no, no, this is not strange. This is not foreign. This is a preparation for what you and I do, whether that be confession, right, where our sins are

placed on the Lord God himself, that one sacrifice once for all that he made for the forgiveness of sins, or when it comes to the mass and we offer up the great lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. All of this is a preparation for our hearts. And so please, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, these are not ancient, not merely ancient books. They are a number of books where the Lord God revealed his heart, prepared a people for the day when God himself will become one of us and offer himself for the sake of the entire world and for the glory of the Father. Gosh, you guys, let's keep praying. Let's keep praying for each other. Also recognizing that this journey through the Bible is only one dimensional as long as we stay away from the

sacraments. If we stay away from worshiping God, if we stay away from prayer, then our experience of the Bible will be so thin. It will be so black and white as opposed to in full vibrant color instead of being completely deep. So please, let's keep praying for each other, both in our private prayer, as well as when we go to mass, when we go to confession,

we experience the sacraments, and when we encounter the true and living God, let's lift each other up in prayer. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you again tomorrow. God bless.