The Bible in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 48: God's Presence (2023)

Episode Date: February 17, 2023

Fr. Mike reflects on God's presence to his people, and how that makes his chosen people distinct. Today's readings are Exodus 33-34, Leviticus 24, and Psalm 80. 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 48 and we are trucking along, aren't we? We are reading today from Exodus chapter 33 and 34. We're reading also Leviticus chapter 24. We are praying today from Psalm 80. As always, I'm always reading from the

Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition. Actually, I'm using the Great Adventure Bible from Ascension to download your own Bible in a Year reading plan. You can go to ascensionpress.com slash Bible in a Year. Also, if you have not yet subscribed in your podcast app, my invitation is that you do that. It's day 48. I'm not sure why you're not. Also, here's a little word of encouragement. One of the things that can happen is, you know, on a weekend or at the beginning of week or basically any time, we can kind of get out of our rhythm, right?

We missed a day. We missed a couple days. And what happens is we can allow that to throw us off. This is not about perfection. This is not about January 1st to December 31st. This is about going through God's word at whatever pace you need. Now, the most helpful way to do this, obviously, is by making a schedule, right? Having a schedule in your day. Like this is when I listen to the Bible in a year podcast so that you can

be consistent, but also so that you know, here's where I'm most aware. Here's where I'm most attuned to God's word. So, but if you haven't yet chosen that, that time, or if because of life and because of weekends and because of other things that's going on, that are going on, that it throws you off your schedule, my invitation, please, and my prayer is don't let that derail you. Don't let that discourage you. Just pick it back up and we start again. And that's it. My good friend, Father Ben,

Father Ben, before he was even a priest, he said the hardest day to read your Bible is the day after the day you don't read your Bible. Because it's like, oh man, I had a run going on there and now I failed. You guys, we're at the end of Exodus. We're at the end of Leviticus. You've done that and keep it going.

We're almost to day 50 and do not stop. Do not slow down. Even if you falter, that's not failure. Failure is quitting and you haven't quit yet. You're on day 48 for crying out loud. So let's go and dive into Exodus chapter 33 and 34. The command to leave Sinai. the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey, but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you in the way, for you are a stiff-necked people. When the people heard these evil tidings, they mourned, and no man put on his ornaments. For the Lord had said to Moses, Say to the sons of Israel, you are a stiff-necked people.

If for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you. So now put off your ornaments from you, that I may know what to do with you. Therefore the sons of Israel stripped themselves of the ornaments from Mount Horeb onward. The Tent of Meeting Now Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, far off from the camp, and he called it the Tent of Meeting. And everyone who sought the Lord would go out to the Tent of Meeting, which was outside the camp. Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose up,

and every man stood at his tent door and looked after Moses until he had gone into the tent. When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the door of the tent and the Lord would speak with Moses. And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the door of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship every man at his tent door. Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend. When Moses turned again into the camp, his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tent. Moses' Intercession

Moses said to the Lord, See, you say to me, Bring up this people, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight. Now, therefore, I beg you, if I have found favor in your sight, show me now your ways, that I may know you and find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people. And he said, my presence will go with you and I will give you rest. And he said to him, if your presence will not go with me, do not carry us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us so that we are distinct?

I and your people from all other people that are on the face of the earth. And the Lord said to Moses, This very thing that you have spoken, I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name. Moses said, I beg you, show me your glory. And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord. And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But he said, you cannot see my face

for man shall not see me and live. And the Lord said, behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand upon the rock. And while my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen. Chapter 34, New Tables of Stone. The Lord said to Moses, cut two tables of stone like the first, and I will write upon the tables the words that were on the first tables which you broke. Be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself there to me on the top of the mountain. No man shall come up with you,

and let no man be seen throughout all the mountain. Let no flocks or herds feed before that mountain. So Moses cut two tables of stone like the first, and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand two tables of stone. And the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy and faithfulness, keeping merciful love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children's

children to the third and fourth generation. And Moses made haste to bow his head toward the earth and worshipped. And he said, If now I have found favor in your sight, O Lord, let the Lord, I beg you, go in the midst of us, although it is a stiff-necked people, and pardon our iniquity and our sin, and take us for your inheritance. The covenant renewed. And he said, Behold, I make a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been wrought in all the earth or in any nation, and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord, for it is a terrible thing that I will do with you. Observe what I command you this day.

Behold, I will drive out before you the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you go, lest it become a snare in your midst. You shall tear down their altars, and break their pillars, and cut down their asherim. For you shall worship no other god, for the Lord whose name is Jealous is a jealous god. Lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and when they play

the harlot after their gods, and sacrifice to their gods, and one invites you, you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of their daughters for your sons, and their daughters play the harlot after their gods, and make your sons play the harlot after their gods. You shall make for yourself no molten gods. The feasts of unleavened bread you shall keep. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread as I commanded you at the time appointed in the month of Abib. For in the month of Abib you came out from Egypt. All that opens the womb is mine. All your male cattle, the firstlings of cow and sheep, the firstling of a donkey, you shall redeem with a lamb, or if you will not redeem it, you shall break its neck. All the firstborn of your sons you shall redeem, and none shall appear empty

before me. Six days you shall work, but on the seventh day you shall rest. In plowing time and in harvest you shall rest, and you shall observe the feast of weeks, the first fruits of wheat of harvest, and the feast of ingathering at the year's end. Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God, the God of Israel. For I will cast out nations before you and enlarge your borders. Neither shall any man desire your land when you go up to appear before the Lord your God three times in the year. You shall not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven. Neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of Passover be left until the morning.

The first of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring to the house of the Lord said to Moses, Write these words. In accordance with these words, I have made a covenant with you and with Israel. And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments, the shining face of Moses. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tables of the covenant in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God.

And when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. And when Aaron and all the sons of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone, and they were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them, and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him, and Moses talked with them. And afterward, all the sons of Israel came near, and he gave them in the commandment all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. And when Moses finished speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he took the veil off until he came out. And when he came out,

he told the sons of Israel what he was commanded. The sons of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses' face shone. And Moses would put the veil upon his face again, until he went in to speak with him. The Book of Leviticus Chapter 24 The Lamp The Lord said to Moses, Command the sons of Israel to bring you pure oil from beaten olives for the lamp, that a light may be kept burning continually. Outside the veil of the covenant, in the tent of meeting, Aaron shall keep it in order from evening to morning before the Lord continually.

It shall be a statute forever throughout your generations. He shall keep the lamps in order upon the lampstand of pure gold before the Lord continually. Bread for the tabernacle. And you shall take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes of it. Two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake. And you shall set them in two rows, six in a row, upon the table of pure gold. And you shall put pure frankincense with each row, that it may go with the bread as a memorial portion to be offered by fire to the Lord.

Every Sabbath day, Aaron shall set it in order before the Lord continually on behalf of the sons of Israel as a covenant forever. And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place, since it is for him a most holy portion out of the offerings by fire to the Lord, a perpetual debt, blasphemy and its punishment. Now an Israelite woman's son, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the sons of Israel,

and the Israelite woman's son and a man of Israel quarreled in the camp, and the Israelite woman's son blasphemed the name and cursed. And they brought him to Moses. His mother's name was Shemaleth, the daughter of Debre, of the tribe of Dan. And they put him in custody till the will of the Lord should be declared to them. And the Lord said to Moses, Bring out of the camp him who cursed, and let all who heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him. And say to the sons of Israel, Whoever curses his God shall bear his sin. He who blasphemes the name of the Lord shall be put to death. All the congregation shall stone him, the sojourner as well as the native, when he blasphemes the name, shall be put to death. He who kills a man shall be put to death. He who kills a beast shall make

it good life for life. When a man causes a disfigurement in his neighbor, as he has done, it shall be done to him, fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. As he has disfigured the man, he shall be disfigured. He who kills a beast shall make it good, and he who kills a man shall be put to death. You shall have one law for the sojourner and for the native, for I am the Lord your God. So Moses spoke to the sons of Israel, and they brought him who had cursed out of the camp and stoned him with stones. Thus the sons of Israel did as the Lord commanded Moses. Psalm 80, Prayer for Israel's Restoration. To the chooir Master, according to Lillies, a testimony of Asaph, a psalm. Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph's flock.

You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh. Stir up your might and come to save us. Restore us, O God. Let your face shine that we may be saved. O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people's prayers? You have fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure. You make us the scorn of our neighbors and our enemies laugh among themselves. Restore us, O God of hosts. Let your face shine, that we may be saved. You brought a vine out of Egypt. You drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it. It took deep root and filled the land.

The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches It sent out its branches to the sea and its shoots to the river Why then have you broken down its walls so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit? The boar from the forest ravages it and all that move in the field feed on it Turn again, O God of hosts, look down from heaven and see Have regard for this vine, the stock which your right hand planted. They have burnt it with fire, they have cut it down. May they perish at the rebuke of your countenance. But let your hand be upon the man of your right hand, the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself, then we will never turn back from you. Give us

life and we will call on your name. Restore us, O Lord, God of hosts. Let your face shine that we may be saved. Father in heaven, we know that you are good and that you are faithful, that when we turn to you, you're already there. You're the one who actually helps us turn to you. Lord God, even the very fact that we're able to listen to your word is your gift. The fact that we want to listen to your word is itself your gift. Lord God, we find every time we turn our hearts to you, our minds to your eyes to you, you are already there. That every one of our prayers is a response to you. Every one of our prayers is a response to your love that already exists. It's a response to your grace that is already given. Lord God, we ask you, please do not abandon us. Please never abandon

us. For without you, we would fail. We would fail not only to live, we would fail to exist. And so we trust you with all of our hearts and all of our lives, and we give you praise today in Jesus' name. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Today we have in Exodus chapters 33 and 34, we have this, the new tables of stone, right? But we also have this incredible description of the relationship that God has with Moses. Moses has with God, that he gets to be in God's presence. And when Moses is in God's presence, there is this incredible, incredible mediation happening, right? There's this incredible mediation happening where here's God who says, listen, I'll send

an angel to bring you up into the land of promise, but I'm not going to go with you because the people are too stiff-necked. And Moses, as the great mediator, Moses is ultimately, you know, the new Moses is Jesus Christ, who is the true mediator, the one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ. But Moses is this prefigurement, right? He's a type of this mediation that Jesus is. And so here's God who says, no, I can't go with you because people's too stiff-necked. And Moses has these words so, so powerful where he says, essentially, that if you do not go with us, we will become extinct. I remember years ago, I was going through this study with Jeff Cavins, and he talked about this

because in Exodus chapter 33, verses 16, in verse 16, it says this, it says, well, 15 and 16, Moses said to him, God, Lord God, if your presence will not go with me, do not carry us up from here. Basically, if you're not going to come with us, then I don't want to go anywhere. It goes, move on to say in verse 16, for how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight,

I and your people? Is it not in your going with us so that we are distinct, I and your people, from all other people that are on the face of the earth. What makes the people of Israel distinct? This is something so important because the Bible makes it very clear that the people of Israel are not distinct. They're not unique because

of their own goodness, not distinct or unique because of their own giftedness. What makes them distinct is that God is present with them. What makes them distinct, what makes them unique is that out of every people that has ever existed in the history of humanity, God was present with them in a unique way. What's that unique way? The unique way is what we have been reading about. That unique way is the covenant that God has entered into this incredible covenant with his people saying, I will be your God. You will be my people.

And here is Moses who's saying, Lord, if you do not continue to be with us, the one thing that makes us distinct, we will become extinct. If we are not distinct, we will be extinct. I think that's worth writing down, worth tweeting out or whatever, worth putting in our hearts. Because when I first heard Jeff talk about that, I was just like, that is it. That is the key. That what makes every people of God,

in the new covenant, right? What makes us unique, what makes us distinct is that God's presence dwells with us constantly. And if he were to leave us, then we would be extinct. You know, it's so remarkable because there's a response to this. This is the last thing quick. There's a response to being distinct like this. There's a response to the fact that God's presence dwells with us. And that's in the commandments. And what you're going to see is here are the commandments in chapter 34. And we're going to have some more coming up, obviously,

in the book of Leviticus talks about them. Even the fact that we've been talking about the festivals a number of times in the last couple of days, the response to God's presence is we now have to live differently. If we really are going to be distinct, right? So here is Moses saying, we're distinct, we're unique like this. Then we're going to have to live in a distinct way. We have to live in a unique way. And one of the temptations that so many of us have is that I don't want to live distinctly.

I don't want to live uniquely. I want to live like everyone else is living. And yet here, think about even the rules, the covenant renewed in chapter 34. We're talking about six days you work, but on the seventh day you rest. Why? Because no one else does that. No one else rests on the seventh day. And we have these festivals of the weeks and the wheat harvest and the ingathering and the Passover. Three times a year, you go before the Lord.

Why? Because no one else does this. And you're actually not going to intermarry. You're not going to marry the people of the Canaanites where you're going. Why? Because you have to be distinct. You have to be unique. If my presence among you is going to be actually distinct, then you have to live in that way. And there's going to, that, that means we have to live in a distinct way from the people around us. So I hope that makes sense because that's, that's one of the hearts of this is, is not only for the people of Israel, but also now for the people of the new covenant, for us Christians, here is God who not only dwells in the tabernacle, right? In every tabernacle throughout every Catholic church in the true presence of Jesus

in the Eucharist, but also here's God who dwells in the power of the Holy Spirit. If you've been baptized, you've been made into a temple of the Holy Spirit. And that means you have been made distinct. That means you've been made unique, not because of our own specialness, our own uniqueness, but because he is there. But that means our response has to be just as it was meant to be in this first covenant here, in the old covenant, which is in response to God's presence. Now I have to live distinctly. And that's a question for all of us to be able to answer. We have to answer this is, am I living distinctly? Part of that distinctive living obviously is listening to God's word and letting

that shape our lens, but it also means translating that lens, that way of looking at the world into action as well. So I have to ask myself today, how is the Lord asking me, commanding me, inviting me to live distinctly? Because he is truly present, And that's what makes our lives and makes us distinct. I'm praying for you and keep, please keep praying for me. We are on this journey together and we're trucking along. As I mentioned yesterday, we are getting close to the end of the book of Exodus, close to the end of book of Leviticus, which just means getting close to the end of this time period as well, moving from Egypt and Exodus into the desert wanderings. Gosh, we're moving along and keep praying for each other because we need those prayers. Without God's grace, all of us are in big trouble. So I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. My name is Father Mike. God bless.