Introduction to the Return (with Jeff Cavins) (2024)
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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. Speaking of the Great Adventure Bible Timeline, once again, we are blessed as we go into the next time period of the Great Adventure Bible Timeline to have the Creator,

of the Great Adventure Bible Timeline. Jeff Caban's with us once again. Ah, gosh, we're excited. He was just with us maybe, gosh, a little over a week ago as we were introduced to Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew. And here we are, new time period. We've left behind the exile and all the prophets

and now heading into this next time period, which is the Returns. Jeff, thank you once again for joining us and helping us on these steps forward. Well, it's good to be with you again, and I'm excited to always go from exile to the Return, brighter days ahead. And that's the yellow period on the Bible timeline chart. And

And it is, it's a new beginning and I'm looking forward to going through it with you. Yeah, that's so good. I mean, I think, I don't know how much people have paid attention to the colors of the Bible timeline. Hopefully they have because that's one of those mnemonic devices that you had come up with that just helps the baby blues and that sends our singing, singing the blues in exile. And just, it's been so long. It was interesting for me, at least, to be able to journey according to the Bible timeline, right? And that chronological journey of here's the stories of

the Kings and Chronicles that led into exile. And then to be able to hear the prophets talking about, yes, here's what's coming. So to know the story and then to hear the prophets voices in the context of the story was, I, it was just, it was fascinating for me, but to realize the story is not over, right? Even though you have Jeremiah and those who are left behind over in Egypt and they're going to die there. And you have the,

the other Jews who were brought up to Babylon, and they're not going to be left, they're not going to be abandoned, they're not exiled forever, but there is the next step, and that's our step today. So I can't wait for this introduction. Yeah, well, you know, when you get to the period of the return, it is brighter days ahead, and it has been rough, hasn't it? You know, we went into exile and 70 years in Babylon, and

And during that period, a lot of things really developed. They didn't have the temple. And so this is really the rise of the synagogue during this time period. It's also the rise of the party of the Pharisees, who are really the teachers. And the kitchen table really becomes the place where sacrifice is realized in a deeper way, because they don't have the temple. So they have all of the kosher rules that are starting to develop internally.

during that time, which we hear about when Jesus comes and dwells among us. And so when they leave exile, it should remind us of something. And

and that is coming out of Egypt, because this whole pattern of exile and return, exile and return, is really, really important. We see it in the Exodus, we see it in the

We're also going to see it in the New Testament, because Jesus in Luke is going to announce the great return from exile, and the story that he uses to really illustrate it is Luke 15, which is the prodigal son. And so not only is this a pattern in the Old Testament—

It is a pattern in our own lives as well. And there's so much that we can learn that we can learn from it. So it's a very exciting time period. That is. And I really appreciate the fact that you highlighted, because I think for probably a lot of people who have been journeying with us through the Bible in a year, one of the things that is a question is often, what is the role of the synagogue versus the role of the temple? And how did those kosher laws, as you mentioned, that were so important,

written in stone, you know, in some ways in the Old Testament earlier on in this, how did they rise to such prominence where it doesn't seem like it's much of a big deal or there's not in the rest of the story. We have these kings and others who were faithful or unfaithful, but it doesn't necessarily mention too often the dietary laws. Oftentimes it would mention who they were worshiping. Were they committing idolatry or were they worshiping the Lord God in the temple? And yet this is a shift up

of, would it be fair to say this is the shift in Judaism that looks maybe more familiar to us while they're in Babylon? Yeah, I would say so, because you go from the temple and the sacrifices of the animals, which we're not that familiar with. We've never been in a culture where they do that. And they go from that to the synagogue, which is more of a community center, a place to come to and to receive instruction and its fellowship with one another. And

And in the Church today, you kind of have this combination of you have the place of sacrifice, which is the altar, the Eucharist, but you also have in churches a gathering place where people come together for fellowship and catechesis and learning and formation, and a number of other things take place. And so, yeah, I think we can identify with it a little bit more.

Now, during this period, when we leave the exile and come into the return, it's important to realize that there's a shift in world power. During the 70 years of Babylonian captivity, it was Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians that were really the big guys on the block, but then comes the Persians. And the Persians were led by Cyrus the Great, and Cyrus was the one who the Lord moved on him

and moved him to allow the exiled to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. Not everybody went back. There was a number of people who actually found it quite comfortable in exile, which is the danger for us today of, you know, I'm away from the Lord and I'm

Kind of comfortable, you know? And that's a dangerous thing when you enter into that. But here's what's interesting. God moved on Cyrus to allow them to come back and even to finance this. And that should remind you of Israel coming up out of Egypt, and the Egyptians actually gave them gold and precious gold.

commodities. And so it's this repetition again. And for those of us that were living back in the 70s and the 80s and the 90s, you might remember something in the news that pertains to this story. The name Cyrus in Hebrew is Koresh. Now, a number of years ago, there was a guy in Waco, Texas, who

kind of thought a lot of himself, and he thought of himself as King David the Conqueror and Koresh the Restorer, and he put them together and he came up with the name David Koresh of the Branch Davidians. And of course, that was in Waco, Texas, and that ended in

a disaster, but it was interesting how that king, Cyrus, came into American history. So after 70 years, they're going to now come back, and they're going to come back in three waves, just like they left to go into exile. They had Daniel in the first one, Ezekiel in the second one, and then the third

Babylonian captivity in 587 is when Jerusalem was destroyed, and now we're going to reverse that in the return. And so you're going to have the first return in 538, the second return in 525, and the third return in 444. Now, people are probably not going to remember those dates necessarily, but you must remember what happened in each of those returns.

In the first return, you have Zerubbabel, and what does he do? He rebuilds the temple, and it is not nearly as beautiful as Solomon's temple. Nevertheless, he rebuilds the temple, and this will be the temple that Herod is going to refurbish later when Jesus comes on the scene. Then you have in the second wave back from captivity, Ezra.

And Ezra is going to bring back, I guess you could say, or revitalize the people with the Word of God. He's going to teach the Word of God. And then in the third wave coming back, Nehemiah comes back on that one, and Ezra

And that is going to be the rebuilding of the walls. So Nehemiah is going to rebuild the walls around Jerusalem. So you have the new temple, you have teaching of the word of God, and you have the walls around Jerusalem. So that's what's going to happen basically in the return. Yeah. So, and that takes place over a long time. You know, I think it's really interesting even that you had mentioned right at the beginning of this,

that they had to adapt and here's how we live in exile. Those who chose to come back, I imagine not only are you comfortable in Babylon, but you're also probably more accustomed now

to not having sacrifice to offer, to not having to go to the temple, to not having to necessarily pay too much particular attention to even the word of God. And so the people coming back, would it be accurate to say that in some ways they were foreign to these things? I mean, 70 years, this is my grandparents did this kind of a situation as opposed to not even my parents, maybe even my great grandparents by the third wave of return. I mean, this is

now been quite a bit of time. And that recognition of, yeah, they have to, how many generations? It's a couple of them. Typically 70 years for that period of time, but that's grandpa and grandpa, great-grandma and grandpa, they're the ones that they were involved in that, that temple sacrifice. Yeah.

And so even as you're mentioning, here's Zerubbabel with the temple and here's Ezra with the word of God and here's Nehemiah building up the walls, that sense of like every one of those pieces, you'd have to be converted to want to even want to do or even to return. You'd have to be in some ways converted to, oh, that's my real home as opposed to, I don't know, this is where I've lived my whole life. Yeah.

There had to be some kind of movement, I imagine, in one's heart. And I think there was. I think the Lord stirred their hearts. He certainly stirred Cyrus to allow them to come back. And by the way, when you enter this period of the return, the two narrative books that you're going to be really focusing on are Ezra and Nehemiah. It's the second and the third wave. And so when you read Ezra and Nehemiah, you're gonna get a play-by-play of the return, the

problems that they faced in returning, the problems that they faced in rebuilding the temple and the walls around Jerusalem. And there were, there were hindrances to do the work of the Lord. There was the temptation towards selfishness. And that is, you know what? God's house is lying in ruins, but I'm going to build my own chateau. You know, I'm going to focus on that rather than the house of God. And the prophet, for example, Malachi, he calls him out on that.

But one of the most interesting things, Father, that I see about this period is how it fits into our own lives.

You know that there are so many people, and perhaps some of our friends who are listening right now have gone through this, and that is a disaster in their life. Maybe their home burned down. Maybe their spouse left. Maybe they lost children. They lost a job. Whatever it might be, calamity in their life. The question is, how do you rebuild in your life

And when we look at the story of the return, keeping in mind what

what St. Paul said in Corinthians about these things were written for you and your encouragement, what can we take away from the return if we feel like we've been in exile, we've been away from the Lord, our lives have been devastated? And I think that the key here is very simple. Three things are focused on. Number one is the temple that Zerubbabel built.

So how does that relate to us today? Well, if you're going to rise from the ashes, then you have to center your life on the Eucharist, the sacraments. Today, the sacraments and the Eucharist come from the liturgy. They come from the heart of the Church. And so if we're going to be restored after our life has been shattered—

we have to be sacramental Christians, and thank God we have that in the Catholic Church. The second aspect is the Word of God, and that's what all of us are participating right now in the Bible in a year, and I'm sure that people by now are saying, you know what? I'm being built up. I'm being strengthened. I feel like I have direction and correction, and I have a

new set of friends, and they're noticing that the Word of God is restoring them because they know the heart of God and the plan of God. So that's the second one. If you want to rebuild your life, first is the sacramental life, the temple. Second is the Word of God, and that is what we're doing now. And then the third is rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem. So how does that correspond to us? Well, in antiquity, you weren't considered

a legitimate city, a real city, unless you had walls around the city. So how does that pertain to us today? That's the Church. That is the Church. You need the Church. You need fellowship. You need that liturgical year. You need leadership from the Pope and the priests and our bishops. So when you put these three together, you've got sacraments, the Word of God, and the Church.

That acts as sort of a tripod to rebuild your life. So this, as people start entering into the return now, it's a time to start thinking about your life, certainly Judah and their restoration, but what about you? And what about members of your family who have been utterly devastated by

And there's a lot going on in the world at any time that would give us reason to believe that there's a lot of people with devastated lives.

Yeah. And that those three elements that, that worship and the word and the church, and that you mentioned the walls, um, that, that would be, I can see my, a tendency in some people to say, I'll take one of those or two of those. I don't necessarily know if I want all of that. And it almost reminds me of that, just that temptation. I remember when I first came across the story of the return, um,

I had just assumed everyone would want to go back to the Holy Land. Everyone would want to go back to Judah and Jerusalem and...

And then realizing, no, not everyone wants to go. And then those who did, as you noted, they even had obstacles. The obstacle of, it's time to build the Lord's temple, the Lord's house. Well, you know, no, we'll take care of that. But after my own home, or even the boldness it took to start building the walls and to say, okay, what does this mean? What are the reigning powers going to say if we rebuild walls here? Because is that an act of defiance? Is that an act of separating us from, you know, that we're,

making ourselves less conquerable, and just all those questions that sometimes, you know, when we have Bible stories that we think are really straightforward. Duh, of course, this is what's going to happen next. And then we realize, oh, it was much more complicated because this is God working with real human beings in real lives where we don't always just want to do the right thing because it's the right thing. A lot of times God has to help us to get to that point.

Well, using Jesus' teaching of the prodigal son, which is really a picture of the exile and the return, we read this story, like you said, and we think, hey, guy, get a clue, right? But he didn't have a clue until suddenly he came to his senses, right?

And when he came to his senses and he saw that even my father's servants were better off than me, the son, he came to his senses and he returned at that point. And when you look back at our own history, like you said, you would think, well, everybody would want to get in on this. Well, in the year 2000, we had the great Jubilee with John Paul II, and you had churches all over the world. Right?

And even going over to Israel, you could go to churches and you could pray and receive great grace during that time. Yet, a lot of the people hadn't come to their senses and they didn't do anything about it. And so we do see that in our own life today. Yeah, honestly, there is an open door. And do I want to walk through it? There's the, like you even mentioned a couple of times now, the prodigal son.

I'm like, I know I have a father and I know that things were better there, but I don't know that I can go home. And I don't know if I want to, because I mean, there's an element too, where I'm not just going to be escaping this unpleasant pig trough and really unpleasant hunger and starvation, but I'm also going to have to play, if I'm going to stay there, if I'm really going to go home, I have to place myself under my father's authority.

and have to live as a son again. And I don't know if I want to live as a son. And all those things, you know, all those dramatic pieces. Now, you mentioned the three main characters here, Zerubbabel and Ezra and Nehemiah. There was also, we're gonna have some ancillary stories. We have the story of Esther, which is just...

I love the story of Esther. I mean, how could you not? I think it's pretty phenomenal. Other things to kind of pay attention to as we have this, I think it's only maybe about two week journey through the return. Yeah.

Yeah, I would say pay attention to, and people are going to say, hey, I've had enough of that, three more prophets. Yes, exactly. You've got three more prophets, and we'll be done with them, but the prophets are very important during not only the exile, but the return. Prophets will speak to you as you go into exile, but they'll also speak to you as you make your return. And so in this period, we have

Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Now, Malachi is the last prophet in the Old Testament. Now, some Bibles will have Maccabees as the last book in the Old Testament. We're going to be getting to that. But of the prophets, it's Malachi. And you know, there's some really interesting things to read here. Like, for example, in Haggai.

Read Haggai in light of they have come back to rebuild the temple and to focus on the work of God, but their own selfishness gets in the way. Okay? So if you read Haggai, listen to it in light of that, it's going to speak to you pretty powerfully.

I really enjoy Father Malachi, because Malachi really sets the stage for the Messiah to come when in Malachi chapter 3, Malachi says, I'm going to send my messenger to prepare the way before me. And then he says in chapter 5, I will send you Elijah, the prophet,

Now, we know because we've read the rest of the story that in Matthew 11, in verse 13, for all the prophets and the law prophesied until John, and if Jesus says, if you're willing to accept it, he is Elijah who was to come.

And he also talks about it more in Matthew 17, 9 through 13. So you have this continuity between the return and the prophet Malachi and the beginning of Jesus' ministry at the Jordan River with John the Baptist, who is going to play the role of the forerunner as Elias.

Elijah. And so there's this beautiful relationship between the old and the new. And then there's another one that I wanted to share with our friends, and that is that in the last book, Malachi—let me just read this to you—it says something sort of odd. It says in chapter 4,

Verse 1,

The Son of Righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go forth leaping like calves from the stall, and you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act, says the Lord of Hosts.

And here's what's really interesting. He says that there will be healing in its wings. Now, how many of us have seen pictures of Israel and or in New York, and you see Orthodox Jews with these tassels coming from their garments on the four corners of their garments?

Way back in the book of Numbers, Moses told the people that they should connect tassels to their garment as a reminder of the commandments. And those tassels are called tzitzit. Now, those tassels are connected to what is called

the wing of the prayer shawl. Those corners of the prayer shawl, corners of the garment, are called the wings. In Hebrew, you would say kanaf, kanaf. Now, why do I mention that? Because it mentions that the Son of Righteousness is going to come, and there's going to be healing in its wings, in its kanaf.

Now, when we come to the New Testament, we see that people reached out to grab the hem of Jesus' garment, to grab the kanaf, the place where the tzitzit, these tassels were attached, and they were healed. They were healed. So again, Malachi is giving us hints of what is going to come, and that is just absolutely amazing.

Beautiful. And so Jesus does come and there's healing in his kanaf, the wings of his garment.

That's amazing. That's incredible. And just, I bet everyone can picture that. We can all picture that prayer shawl or the, what would the technical term for it be? The tallit, the tallit hanging. To recognize that here is Jesus with healing his wings. I just, you can even hear the woman praying. If I just but touch the hem of his garment, I'll be healed. And man,

Man, and realizing that here is this isn't just a random thing where she kind of sneaking up to try to touch any particular part of Jesus or part of his clothing. But because of this prophecy of Malachi, knowing that if he's the Messiah, this is this is where I go. This is where I go for healing, which is just that's.

That's incredible. That's so good. Yeah, and there will be healing in his wings, and that's beautiful. You know, another thing that's interesting that we haven't really commented on a whole lot in some of the other periods is the extra-biblical things that are actually happening during this time, right at the point where

Israel, Judah, is rebuilding after coming out of exile for 70 years. They are rebuilding. They need the sacraments. They need the Word of God. They need the wisdom of the community and the communion of the saints. And it's during this time that you have great thinking minds like Plato and Socrates and a few years from now, Aristotle, which are all great, but

But it reminds me so much that there's wisdom in the world, yes, but there is one who is wisdom, Jesus Christ. And if you're going to rebuild your life, he is the one you want to rebuild your life on.

That's so incredible, too, that you're recognizing. Even here in Christendom now is these two wings. St. John Paul II said the two wings by which the soul flies to God is faith and reason. And that sense of here is the Lord God who's led his chosen people, not only from a

from slavery to freedom to kingdom to exile and back. So he rooted them more deeply in faith, building that up again. But also, as you noted, at the same time here of the return is this time period of the flourishing of reason. Which, does he think...

The timing can be, looking back, you think, oh my gosh, all these things converging at the time, of course, I imagine it's just, it can feel like chaos. It can feel like haphazard. It can feel like there is no rhyme or reason, or there is no hand of the Lord in it. But looking back, we realize, okay, here's what God has done. This must be what he also is doing in our lives as well, which is

Such a gift. We have only 14 days or so with this return, and then we're going to go on to the Maccabean Revolt, which is going to be a whole other story, and hopefully we'll have another introduction to that time period. But to any last words, Jeff, as we take this next two-week step, this two-week section of our journey. Yeah, I would just kind of riff off of what you just said, and that is that

When you read the story in Salvation History, it's easy to compartmentalize the stories and to say, this period, then this period, then this period, go from Ezra to Nehemiah to 1 Maccabees, and it's very kind of, all right, I think I got my mind and my heart around this story. But when you're in the story, you don't think of it that way. All you can think of at the time is

Life is a mess right now, or it's going pretty good right now, and we need to, from time to time, stand back and look at our own lives the way we look at salvation history and to kind of chronicle and to say, God got a hold of my heart back in 19-whatever-19-whatever.

Then I went through this, I went through that, and now I'm here today. And to recognize the moving of the Lord in your life, that your life is not just a mess. It's not just confusion. God has a plan of sheer goodness, and there is a tapestry that is being woven in your life. If you would slow down, go to a holy hour, and just meditate.

meditate and think about what God is doing in your life, the movements of your own heart and the movements of God in your life. Don't be drowned by the confusion and the noise. Take some time to look at your own life the way we're looking at salvation history. Yeah. Amen. That's so good. Especially, I think that's one of the lessons that

Hopefully, people have been reminded of every day or at least regularly as we've been journeying 267 days of listening to the Bible, that sense of how do I look at this with the eyes of faith? How do I look at this in my life right now even with the eyes of someone who I know who God is and I know what he thinks of me more and more deeply? I'm embracing that and being embraced by him. And so

yeah, in good times and in bad times and in sickness and in health, that here's the Lord who has chosen us. And he continues, yeah, he continues to uphold and sustain. So I'm so grateful for you, Jeff. Thanks. I know that on behalf of everybody who listens and has been letting the word of God to transform their hearts, that these checkpoints, these moments that we get launched into the next time period are so helpful because again, your wisdom and you're such a great teacher that it just,

Yeah, it makes all the difference. So super grateful for all of us who are part of this program, part of this community as we continue to walk through the Bible in a year. Please know that it's not just I always say every day that I am praying for you and it's absolutely 100% true. But I also know that there is a whole team of people, including Jeff, including the people who work to post the podcast every day and all the people behind the scenes, the people who arrange all the reading, everything. And

they're not just doing that work. They're also praying for you as well. And so I should start saying, we're praying for you, referencing all those people, because I know that Jeff and myself and all those people who help make this podcast a reality, we are praying for you. So please pray for us. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.