Exodus #16

If the twelve tribes of Israel were one human being who happens to be you, then what would the Book of Exodus be telling you?

In this final study of the Book of Exodus, we take a step back and consider the entire book in its moral, or tropological setting: Is God active in your life? If so how much? Is he active now and then, watching us from afar, waiting for us to come to him, waiting for our prayers?

Did you ever stop to think about how we get purified, how we get cleansed and healed? The sun shines every day, the wind blows your beating heartbeats without your attention. Is God present between the beats of your heart? Does he care? if so how much?

In the final analysis, we are saved, not because we care about God, but because God cares about us, and his care for us precedes us. God cares since before the foundation of the world.

How much?

Exodus #15

If God set forth the ten commandments he wished written in the hearts of all men when he instructed Moses to build the Tabernacle, then it follows that the Tabernacle is essential for men to live by the law.

The tabernacle, with its sacrificial system, its high priest and the twelve tribes of Israel around it is a symbol of a greater reality: The tabernacle of the Catholic Church, the Pope, and the nations receiving the light of Christ from her.

The tabernacle is then the symbol of the body of Christ and this lecture will focus on the meaning of the tabernacle in the light of Christ. We shall describe how much of the specific physical details concerning the various objects found inside the tent, the priestly vestments, and the sacrifices therein point to and prepare Israel to recognize the surpassing reality of Christ's incarnation, death, and resurrection.

Tabernacle picture by Didier Descouens - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Exodus #14

What is the hidden meaning of the High Priest's clothing? What must he wear and why? A better understanding of the High Priest's clothing will help us understand the clothing of the Catholic Priesthood.

Concerning the High Priest's vestments, Ben Sira (ca. 190 BC.) wrote "How glorious was he when he looked forth from the Tent and emerged from behind the Temple veil! He was like the morning star appearing between the clouds, Like the full moon on a festival day"

So what do these various elements of the priestly vestment mean?

Exodus #13

The Ten Commandments and the Tabernacle are two aspects of the same reality. We cannot live the Ten Commandments without the Tabernacle.

"Amen, amen, I say to you: unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you have no life in you," So said Our Lord in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Saint John. He, who is the fulfillment of the law and the reality the tabernacle foreshadowed, joins both in His Person and gives us his body to eat and his flesh to drink, so that we may be able to keep the law and live by his life.

This is the penultimate meaning of the law and the tabernacle. Together, they point and reflect the glory of the Son of Man. The Law alone is of no use to us for we cannot keep it. The tabernacle alone is not enough, for we need the moral compass of the Law. Put together, joined as they were joined by the Lord, they form a diptych pointing to Jesus. Understanding them helps us to obey the Lord.

Exodus #12

The tabernacle of the Lord is a portable mountain. It is the mountain of the Lord in the midst of his people. The ratification of the covenant by Israel was a celebration. Israel, all of Israel, ratified the covenant and their elders were invited to go up the mountain to the table of the Lord where a meal was prepared for them. Then Moses, alone, went up the mountain to receive the tablets of the Law. The people remained at the foot of the mountain, the elders were allowed entry to the mid-section of the mountain, and Moses was welcomed in the inner sanctum, the top of the mountain. The mountain is a tabernacle and the tabernacle is a portable mountain. This makes sense if we keep in mind that, to man, the mountain was God's abode, the place where God dwelt. The Lord then accommodated this belief and took his mountain with him wherever the Israelites went. He wanted to be in the midst of his people and to do so, he instructed Moses to build a moving mountain, a divine tabernacle according to a heavenly pattern. This study will delve into these details and show how God, in His love and mercy, wanted and still wants to live in the midst of his people.

Exodus #11

When Israel ratified its covenant with the Lord, humanity should have had a great victory. Through the ratification of the covenant with Israel, humanity found its missing link back to God. God had been walking with us ever since he visited Adam and Eve in the garden. After the fall, we turned our back on him and ran away... to him. God, ever patient, ever-loving, walked in our shadow, never leaving our side but we chose to believe in our shadow and forget him. In this event, hidden away in the wilderness, witnessed by no one outside Israel, God showed himself to his children and renewed the covenant of Noah, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with them. He invited their elders to his table and blessed them. What does this event mean to us today? What does it tell us about God's ways, his faithfulness, his love, and his desire to see us sit at his table? God is love, yes. But his love is a covenantal love. With no understanding of the covenant, we lose our way back to him.

Exodus #10

This talk is concerned with the praxis of the Ten Commandments: the practical ways to obey the law in Sinai. By extrapolation, one may think about the practical ways through which we demonstrate our obedience to God's Law.

God is not interested in giving us la aw and letting us be. He is not an absentee God, watching over us from afar, and intervening only when we stray too far away. God should not be thought only in the judgment of Sodom and Gomorra, the plagues of Egypt or the destruction of the Golden Calf, for the Lord is near, very near indeed and He takes as much delight in a smile on the face of a child that he did in the creation of the universe.

God, our God is a personal, loving, caring, and just God.

In this talk, we study a set of laws pertaining to the loss of property and economic goods, laws pertaining to moral conduct, as well as laws regarding the religious calendar. Our goal is not so much the laws themselves as it is the Giver of these laws. By understanding God's motive in giving these laws, we will be in a better position to understand what he expects of us today. After all, justice demands that if God required the Israelites under Moses to live according to His Law, then we, who are called to live under the grace of Jesus Christ would be required to live this law most perfectly. After all, to whom much is given, much is required.

Exodus #9

The Ten Commandments were not given in a vacuum; The commandments were given within a theological, liturgical, and moral context that form the key to a correct understanding of the law.

The Ten Commandments are a covenant. A covenant has blessings and curses. This explains the "Thou shall not," reminiscent of the law (singular) God gave Adam and Eve: "You may not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for the day you shall eat of it, you shall surely die."

What is the nature of this covenant? What does it mean to you and me? Is it still biding or is it a part of Scripture that fell in desuetude once the New Covenant was promulgated?

We know the Ten Commandments are still binding but how should we read the preparation Moses and the Israelites went through to receive the ten commandments? What of the meal with the elders, what about the 40 days fast Moses endured?

More importantly, why did God give Moses the 10 commandments right before the instructions for the construction of the tabernacle? How are these two events related?

We shall endeavor to show that the Ten Commandments are best understood in a liturgical context the Lord instituted; a foreshadowing of Holy Thursday, the institution of the Eucharist, and the Mass.