The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Hebrews: An Inside Look at the Mass

Episode Date: July 17, 2020

Jeff interviews Dr. Andrew Swafford on his latest study, Hebrews: The New and Eternal Covenant. Dr. Swafford shows us that by understanding the roots of liturgical worship in the old testament, we can have a deeper appreciation for the eternal sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. In this episode, Jeff and Dr.Swafford dive into the letter to the Hebrews and offer us a renewed love for the Mass. Snippet from the Show “We no longer imitate the heavenly liturgy, we actually share in it because Christ has reconciled heaven and earth.” Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail] Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

You're listening to the Jeff Kavan Show, episode 171, Hebrews, an inside look at the Mass. Hey, I'm Jeff Kavans. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven Show. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. This is going to be a special show. show. I have a very special guest, and perhaps you've heard of him. Maybe you are involved in focus. Maybe you're involved in, or a graduate of Benedictine College out in Atchison, Kansas. Well, you'll know very well who my guest is today, and it's Dr. Andrew Swofford, Dr. Andrew Swofford.

But before we get to that, I want to ask you a question. Is there a book in the Bible, Old Testament or New Testament, that you really struggle with? And Leviticus doesn't count, because I know you're going to put that on the list. So we'll limit it to the New Testament. Is there a book in the New Testament that you really, really struggle with? Well, in all the years that I've been teaching, when I ask people, when I ask people which book is the hardest for them to get their mind around, well, they say revelation, typically, but there's also another one that they mention, and that is the letter to the Hebrews. And the reason for that is that so much of what you encounter in the letter to the Hebrews really deals with the Old Testament and the details of the Old Testament. And if you don't know those details from the

Old Testament, then you are really going to struggle with the letter to the Hebrews. One of the questions that I get so often is, how do I really understand the New Testament and specifically the Gospels, and even more specifically, how do I understand the teachings of Jesus? And my answer is always the same, and that is, you have to be acquainted with the Old Testament. And people typically will think of the Old Testament as dry and boring, and it doesn't really relate to us. It's of no consequence, and it just simply isn't true. It was all written for us, and we find that in Jesus Christ, there is the culmination to this amazing. amazing story that begins in the Old Testament. You know that reading the book of Hebrews is similar

to watching or listening to the details of a movie, but you haven't seen the movie. Like if I started to talk to you about ruby slippers and scarecrows and tin men and monkeys that fly and wicked witches and a man behind the curtain and yellow brick roads and all of that would seem very foreign to you unless you've seen the movie, the Wizard of Oz. And it's the same way with the letter to the Hebrew. So it's a pleasure for me to introduce to you teaching scripture and theology at Benedictine College in Atchus in Kansas. It's the second study that I've been privileged to work with him on, and that is a good friend of mine, Dr. Andrew Swofford. Dr. Swofford, welcome. Jeff, thanks for having me on. It's so good to be with you.

It is good. And it wasn't too long ago that we actually, I was privileged to work with you on this letter to the Hebrews. We worked on Romans together and you did such a great job. They signed you up again. They took me for another round. Well, Jeff, it's always been, it's fun to work with you, fun to learn from you from, to go back and forth and then banter and just have a good time together. Well, you know this, the letter to the Hebrews, as I'm sure when you were preparing for the study, and I was preparing for the study, at first it's like, wow, this is going to be, this is going to be difficult because there's so many foreign concepts and words and Old Testament ideas. But once I got into it, I started to realize, wow, this is really, really rich.

It's one of my favorite books. It's such a gem. You know, you're right that you have, to know the old that really you can't get very far anywhere in the new testament at all without having paul or someone else preach the crigma preach the gospel uh without recourse to the old testament uh you know st augustine like to say that the old is revealed the new and the new is concealed in the old and the same is true here hebrews really it's the analogy came to my mind as preparing for the study uh is that it's like the holy of holies of biblical theology it's like going into the inner chambers of what god has revealed and as you said the culmination in Christ. And just so many gems just unfold when you've been able to follow the story. And it just,

I find it exhilarating. Well, so many times we receive questions in what I would call the area of apologetics, you know, where people are saying, well, you know, why this about the Eucharist, why this about Jesus, why this about forgiveness of sins and so forth. And I found in studying Hebrews that there were so many apologetic answers, apologetics for those of you that are not familiar is simply a defending of the faith. It's an explaining of the faith. And there really is a lot of answers to basic questions that people have, you know, about the priesthood, about forgiveness, about the blood of Jesus and sacrifice and so forth.

So if we look at the letter to the Hebrews, one of the major themes that comes out that we definitely need to know something of the Old Testament is this whole idea of, of the priesthood. And that really is centered to the teaching that you give in the letter to the Hebrews. And so give us a little background on the priesthood in the Old Testament and how Jesus really is, can we say, taking the priesthood and biggie sizing it. It's a supersized version. I think the key to all of this, the key to following the thought of the New Testament writers of the author of Hebrews, is seen, as you said, the story of Jesus, covenant on the heels of the old and in fulfillment of the old. You know, you've got that line from

Jesus in Matthew 239, you'll call no man father. What are we doing, run around calling our priest's father? Well, there's a long backstory here. And of course, Jesus doesn't mean that in a literalistic way. He's talking about don't simply reach out for honorific titles and the like. But you can go back really to Adam in the garden, but certainly the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, go back to Noah. They build altars, they offer sacrifice, they give the blessing, they do all these priestly things. And so it's really important to recognize that there's multiple layers of priesthood in the Old Testament. It's not just the Levites.

They become the priestly tribe after the golden calf and because of the golden calf. But before that, before that you have what's called the patriarchal priesthood, which is really a spiritual fatherhood. You have a vestige of this in Judges 17 and 18 when you have this man named Micah, it says to a younger man, a younger Levite says, be to me, a quote, father and a priest. So you really have the sense of priesthood as spiritual fatherhood. And when Jesus calls the 12 apostles, what's that calling to mind? The 12 tribes of Israel. These are like 12 new patriarchs. He's restoring and elevating the patriarchal priesthood. And that patriarchal priesthood is embodied quintessentially in

Melchizedek. And so Hebrew, especially chapter 7, is all about Jesus is a priest, not according to the order of Levi, but the order of Melchizedek. and he restores and elevates in a heavenly key what those ancient patriarchs had of old. And this is why priests are rightly called father because they are our supernatural fathers in Christ. And Jesus is the one priest and he continues to exercise his priesthood through our ordained priests. Now, as you look at the, as you look at the Old Testament priests, the priest came out of the whole Mount Sinai experience, you know, prior to the golden calf incident in Exodus 32, you had kind of a pastoral priesthood where the leader of the home acted as a priest.

But then everything changed. And there are certain times in the Bible when we look through salvation history, as we teach in the great adventure, I might add, where everything changes. And when they were at Mount Sinai for one year, everything changed. And a lot of people don't catch that. that at Mount Sinai you have a new priesthood, you have the introduction of the law, and you have the introduction of the tabernacle. And that tabernacle and the priesthood are two principal topics

that Jesus is going to fulfill here, and that also carries on into our own Catholic churches in terms of the priesthood and in terms of the tabernacle and the holy of holies. Well, when they created that, that tabernacle, it says that Moses created it after a pattern. So this isn't something that's just made up in Exodus 32. And as a result of the covenant in Exodus 24, then the broken covenant, this is something that transcends their Sinai experience, doesn't it? Absolutely. And you're mentioned that word Tavnif, making this. So Moses goes up Mount Sinai.

He receives the instructions for the tabernacle. And the top of Sinai, this is God's presence. This is sort of a prototype of heaven itself. And Moses told, make the tabernacle according to this heavenly pattern. And so the tabernacle becomes kind of a continuation of the Sinai theophony with his people. The tabernacle and then later the temple becomes kind of a prototype, a foreshed of the heavenly worship, the heavenly liturgy that's going on in heaven. And that whole Sinai experience, as you say, it's dramatic in so many different ways. One on a kind of a positive level, you have this sacrifice that seals the covenant in Exodus 24

versus 3 through 8. And you have Moses saying, behold, the blood of the covenant, words that our Lord Jesus picks up explicitly at the last supper. And then right after that passage in Exodus 24A, if you go three verses later, Exodus 2411, you have this communion meal on the top of Mount Sinai in the presence of God. And all of this really gives rise to deep Jewish expectation that in the Messianic age, there'll be a messianic banquet, a communion meal in the very presence of God. And the tabernacle becomes a foreshed of all that.

You've got the bread of the presence, the lechem hapanim, in the holy place of the tabernacle, which becomes kind of a commemoration meal of that heavenly banquet meal on the top of Mount Sinai. And it's sort of a memorialization, a making present of that meal. What's Jesus going to do the last supper? This is the new covenant. This is the new covenant in my blood, the blood of the covenant. And here, do this in memory of me. And here's this commemoration memorial meal that's not just a remembering.

It's a making present of this messianic banquet meal and the very presence of God, the wedding supper of the lamb. And all of this movement from the old to the new, from the earthly to the heavenly because what happens in Christ, what happens in the new covenant is now we no longer imitate that heavenly liturgy. We actually share in it because Christ has reconciled heaven and earth. And so when we go to Mass, when we receive our Lord and we enter this messianic banquet meal, this wedding supper of the lamb, it's a memorial. It's a making present of, as we all know, the last supper, the cross, all of it in one dynamic.

And what Hebrews brings out so powerful is that Jesus continues this self-offering. He presents it before our father in heaven, in and through his ascension. And it's the same offering as the cross, but it's through his glorified and risen humanity. And that's the Messianic banquet meal that is present whenever we go to Mass. So you have in the Old Testament, in the book of Exodus, you have the priests who are from the tribe of Levi. We see for the first time now here we have this whole tribe. They make up the priests. And then the line of Moses and Aaron are high priest.

So the high priest has a different role than your regular run-of-the-mill, Levitical priest. and it's that high priest who is responsible for the atonement of sin in the nation of Israel. And what does the high priest do every year that deals with the sins of Israel, which we're going to find out is really not enough? So here, this is Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, right? A fall feast, a sacred feast. You can read about Lividaicus 16. the so you have the golden calf and you have the tabernacle levitical apparatus that comes out of that

and what you have kind of in its own context in its own day previously when when israel entered in this covenant and the sacrifice of the blood all of this is kind of a sworn oath this is how we've been understood at the time and it's in effect pre-enacting a sort of a conditional self-curs May this happen to me if I'm unfaithful. And Israel is obviously unfaithful to the Golden Camp. What happens is God does not give out that covenant curse. He actually suspends it. He delays it.

In the Day of Atonement, for example, bears that covenant curse symbolically. It doesn't take away sin, but it's a symbolic taking away of sin. It's a reminder of sin, but not redemptively, not entirely, only symbolically. In Israel's story, we have to keep in mind. always, it always is an embodiment of humanity stories. So it's not just the golden, as the rabbis say, what the forbidden fruit was to Adam and the garden, Adam and even garden, the golden calf is to Israel. So it's not just about Israel, it's not about the golden calf, but they are really an embodiment of humanity. It's all of us.

God, absolutely. And so, but that, what that sets up, though, is this expectation that one day, one day a new high priest will come along who can bear this curse, this kind of alienation from God, but do so redemptively and reconcile with God, reconciles with God, reconciling. settle heaven and earth once again. And that's really how Jesus fulfills what the high priests of old were symbolizing and typologically reshadowing. And so it tells us in the letter to the Hebrews that Jesus is going to do what the high priest in the Old Testament does. He's going to go behind the curtain. And that tabernacle was made up of a holy area, which was a kind of an oblong square. And then you have the Holy of Holies, which was a perfect cube. And the high priest

went into the Holy of Holies. And it was so, it was so special, so holy that they even had to tie on a type of bell onto the legs of the high priest, you know, on his garments in case he in case he died in there. They'd pull him out, you know. And it's this going behind the veil that Jesus does for us. And what's different in the Old Testament is that the great high priest, Jesus, is also the sacrifice. Right. I mean, in a real deep sense, sacrifice is a ritualized self-offered, even in the Old Testament. But in Jesus, you've got the perfect union of both priest and victim of the one offering and what is offered. You mentioned the veil, the curtain, in the Holy of Holies.

Now, just think about how relevant this is for us. I mean, in the holy place, you've got the menorah. You've got the veil through which one would enter the Holy of Holies. I mean, has anybody ever seen a golden box in our churches, like in the Sanctuary? With a veil over that golden box. This is a bell. Yeah. And how about the incense?

You have the golden incense altar in that holy place. How about having some candles on that altar? Think of the menorah. This is not just happenstance. This isn't just kind of, oh, we thought this would be cute. No, this is deep typological fulfillment. And you mentioned that fail. I mean, this is, so yes, in the tabernacle and in the temple,

and the tabernacle itself, there's a bit of a, I suppose, a paradox. On the one hand, it's a great, tremendous, just astonishing gift that the Sinai experience, the presence of God would go with his people. There's also a sense that because of the golden calf, God's presence is now removed from his people. So when you have the tabernacle, as you said, only the high priest can go in and only once a year on the Day of Atonement. And only with the blood of bulls, by the way, probably hearkening back to the gold cap that got them into this mess. And then even when they have the camp set up, if you look at numbers one through four, the Levites camp on all sides of the tabernic, it's kind of a buffer between the God and the people. And so on the one hand, it's this great gift.

But there's also a sense in which it's God with his presence is withdrawn from the people. And so when Christ dies on the cross, as we know from the Gospels, that veil is torn. And that veil, that's symbolizing really a couple of things. I mean, one, the giving way of the old covenant, but two, the unleashing of God's presence in the world, because now, think about this, then only the high priest and once you can go into God's holy, sacred presence now, anytime, anywhere, any of us can go before our Lord, before the tabernacles, before the blessed sacrament, at any time. And that's what's changed.

And Hebrews actually just expounds upon this when it talks about how now through Christ, we can go into the heavenly holy of holies and we go there through the quote veil or through the curtain Hebrews 1020 and what is that that is his Jesus's flesh it's a eucharistic that's absolutely amazing you know you talk about this at one point that the veil has been rent and uh and and it's almost like god is loose you know and we and we have access now uh to our father we have access to the throne of grace and the source of mercy You know, the mercy seat was in the holy of holies, and we now have access. And this, of course, is all celebrated in the Mass.

And we'll talk about that right after our break. I'm talking with Dr. Andrew Swofford, a professor over at Benedictine College in Etches in Kansas. And I know that many of you are familiar with that fine, fine college and the work that they're doing there. When I come back, I want to talk a little bit about the model. day priesthood as it relates to the book of Hebrews and give you a little bit of an appreciation for our marvelous priests today, as well as I'm going to give you information on when the study comes out and how you and your parish can get a hold of it. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. Hi, I'm Sonia Corbett, the Bible study of Angelista and a Baptist turned Catholic.

As a Baptist, I thought the Catholic beliefs were invented, that they came out of no and had no connection whatsoever to the Bible. I also happened to believe that the Old Testament was about rules, rituals, and sacrifices that the New Testament gave us permission to ignore for a personal relationship with Jesus. It's a long story, but as God began connecting the Old and New Testaments for me, I was stunned by the beautiful consistency of God in the Catholic Church. I can't tell you how exciting it was when God opened my eyes to the incredible ways the Old Testament foreshadows God's plan for the New Testament and for his Catholic Church. church. In my book Fulfilled, uncovering the biblical roots of Catholicism, I explain these

amazing connections, and I share how those connections helps change my life. If you read this book, I promise that you will come away with tools to help you share your Catholic faith easily, answer questions about how your Catholic faith fits with what's in the Bible, and most importantly, grow deeper in your relationship with Christ. If you're interested in learning more or ordering a copy of fulfilled, uncovering the biblical roots of Catholicism, You can do so at ascensionpress.com or on Amazon. And I want to welcome you back. Have you ever looked at your parish priest and thought to yourself, well, I've heard of priests in the Old Testament and somehow, some way, father so-and-so must be connected to them?

Well, the answer is he is connected to the great high priest, Jesus Christ. Yes, he is conducting a sacrifice. In fact, by the way, I want to welcome Dr. Swaffer back into our conversation here. I heard Dr. Swafford scholars say one time, he said that if Jewish scholars who are very familiar with the Old Testament were sitting in a balcony and watching the holy sacrifice of the mass, the moment the priest washes his hands, they would immediately say there's going to be a sacrifice here. And this great going behind the veil and the sacrifice of Jesus, the victim and the priest, is so spectacular. But we continue to experience it today. But we don't re-kill Jesus, do we? We don't re-kill or re-sacrifice or re-nail them to a cross, do we? No, no. Jesus died. As Hebrew says, once and for all. He is in glory. So he is no longer

suffering, is no longer bleeding, but he ascends into heaven after his resurrection. He presents his self-offering to the Father. That self-offering, as the catechism puts it, the Council Trent put it, it's one of the same sacrifice. In the last supper to the cross, to his ascension to heaven, it's one sacrifice, but different modes. On the cross, it's bloody. Otherwise, it's unbloody. So it's the same sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, but made present through Christ risen and glorified humanity. So he's not suffering. He's not bleeding. But it is a sacrifice. It's the sacrifice of Jesus that ratifies and establishes the new covenant.

Isn't it ironic? You know, as I was thinking about this, as you and I were shooting the video, you've done a great job with the workbook and the, you know, that goes with it. And as we were, as we were shooting, it really hit me personally that the letter was written, I think, in response to people, going through tough times, you know, difficult times people were going through. And in order to comfort them, the Lord sees fit to describe to us what he went through suffering for us. And in a sense, opens up the riches that are available to us. For those that do struggle and those who are are dealing with with great hurdles in their life and great obstacles in suffering.

How do you think that the letter to the Hebrews will minister to them? Yeah, I really sense in preparing for this study that there's a timeliness of it for many reasons. And they're still ongoing, whether it's just COVID or and beyond. There's, when you look at, I think the way I'd start with this is Hebrews, when it talks about Jesus. On the one end, right out of the chute, it talks about just how Jesus is on the creator side of the creator-creator divide. He is the one through whom all things were made. He is the eternal son. So this really high view of who Jesus is, as we profess in the creed and at River Mass. At the same time, you have another place where Hebrews references the aging in the garden.

So you've got this, the divinity of Jesus and the clear humanity of Jesus. Jesus is self-empty, and as St. Paul teaches in Philippians, even to the point of the cross, his agging in the garden. And so I think the first thing I would say is, you know, we can handle, we can talk about different times, difficult struggles in different ways. We can talk about redemptive suffering. We could talk about kind of logical answers to the problem of evil. But I think at a deep, deep level, wherever we are, there's a real sense in which Jesus was

there first. Jesus was there first. And I think Hebrews really emphasizes that. And Hebrews, as you said, is written to a context of persecution of suffering. It's an exhortation to cling to the heavenly new covenant and not fall back into the old and not be afraid of persecution. At the end of the day, at the end of the day, our hope is in Jesus. Our hope is in the Lord.

The virtue of hope is not just optimism. It's not just a feeling. The basis for the virtue of hope and what it's really all about is, is one, knowing I am ultimately not made for this world. This world is beautiful, it is good, it is rich, and we should enjoy it and cherish it, and we should do everything we can to create a just and charitable order. But ultimately, we're not made for this order.

And then two, despite appearances to the contrary, God is always at work. I like to think of the Joseph narrative, when Joseph is sold in slavery, and then he has those great reconciliation scenes in Genesis 45 and 50 with his brother saying, you meant this for evil, but God allowed it that good may come,

that many would be saved. God is doing a great work even now, not just in our country and our world, not just with COVID, not just with, you know, the racial discussions we're having and just the tragic death of George Floyd and then now in the riots and the like.

He's doing a great work in my heart and in your heart and our families. There's a great work that our Lord is doing. And on the one hand, we don't play a moral calculus game and kind of say, well, it was worth it for this and that reason. No, no, no. But we just trust. We trust that our Lord is at work.

And that's the virtue of hope. And the Hebrew is really, it's all Christocentric. Wherever we are now, Jesus was there first, and Jesus is with us now because he lives. He is risen. I love that when you say Jesus was there first, because as you cover in the actual study in chapter 12, talks about the fact that we need to look to Jesus, who is the pioneer and the perfector of our faith. He's the beginning. He is the one who perfects our faith.

And that's right on the tail end of chapter 11, which is the Hall of Faith. And literally, the writer to the Hebrews goes through the entire Old Testament and talks about how people walked by faith. And people can do that as well today. Okay, so the title of the title of the study is Hebrews, the new and eternal covenant, and the study is now available for pre-order at ascensionpress.com. and it will ship in late August. So it's going to get out there a little earlier than I had anticipated. And my friends, this is good for group study. You can do the workbook.

You have online videos available to you with Ascension. And, of course, Ascension makes it possible for your parish to have not just one, not two, not three, not four, five, six, but even 10, 15, 20 studies going on at the same time via the marvelous technology that we have. Individuals can do the work, and you can go through the study as well. Maybe you don't have, maybe you can't get together with people. Even at the time of this release in August, you can still go through it online, and we hope that you do. And if you're wondering if there should be a Bible study in your parish and there's not,

and you're hoping that somebody will start one, well, guess what? You might be that person. You might be that person. It has to start somewhere. And maybe you're going from follower to leader now, and that can be a little bit of a leap. But you can do it. You can do it.

And we've got a great staff on hand that will walk you through that. As we conclude, Dr. Swafford, one last thought of the letter to the Hebrews and why people should get into a study on this particular letter? Well, it's sort of like when people say, which Bible should I read? Which translations like best? And I always say, well, the one you read,

that's the best translation, right? So just get into God's word. The one reason I felt a sense of kind of divine timing and timeliness for the study is, you know, we've been away from the Euchar for a long time. And many of us are maybe just starting to get back. And it's the one thing that comes out in a pronounced way in Hebrews is this. The new covenant is not just a document,

it's not just the New Testament. the new covenant is a liturgical reality. And there's a real sense in which the cross is the fulfillment of the entire biblical story. But that even leads to the Eucharist, that the entire biblical story really is fulfilled in the Holy Eucharist, that that's the center of the source and the summit is of Attic and Tutah. And so I sense to kind of a timeliness of it that is wonderful as Bible study is. This will show us that the Bible itself points us back to the mess. Well, Dr. Swoffer, thanks again for joining me on the show today, and we're going to have you back certainly in the future, and I hope we get to do some more studies in the future.

Well, my friend, I hope you get into the letter to the Hebrews. I know it's going to make a lot of sense, particularly out of the Old Testament and the Mass and the whole idea of the priesthood. By the way, if you want the show notes for not only this show, but all the shows in the future, all you've got to do is type my name, full name, Jeff Kaven's, one word, and you can text 3-3. 777. That's easy. It's biblical. 3-3-777. I want you to know I love you, praying for you, and ask you to pray for me as well. And I do pray right now in the name of Jesus that you will be blessed, so blessed with this study. Look forward to seeing you next week and you have a wonderful week and remember to walk as a modern day disciple, an activated disciple.

Thank you.