 I'm so indebted to my older sister in Christ, Mary, my big sister. She's such a comfort to me when I feel like I'm spit up and chewed out by the biblical establishment. I go to her for comfort. I feel like she got my back. And she laid down the foundation for our looking at the Jubilee and we're going to go over some of the same territory but looking at different aspects of it as well as look at some further texts in the Dead Sea Scrolls and elsewhere that really help us to get further into the meaning of this great year of freedom. So Dr. Healy looked at this key text from Leviticus 25. You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so 49 years. Now notice all the sevens, right? And as Dr. Hahn has pointed out many times, you know, we say that seven is the number of completion or it's a sacred number. That's rather bland. It's true but it just kind of lies there. It's really something more specific than that. Seven is the number of covenant, right? So in the Hebrew language, one of the words for oath is a form of the word seven, sheva. And why is that? And to swear an oath in Hebrew is nishva. It's what scholars call the nifal form or it's a middle passive. It means to do something to yourself seven times. Well, why would, you know, sevening yourself be the number or be the verb for covenant making in Hebrew? Well, it comes from the practice of performing an action seven times in order to solemnize it. And so in ancient Israelite society, you would speak a sacred promise seven times or perform an action seven times and that made it not just a promise but an oath. And we see that in Genesis 21, where Abraham and the local king Abimelech, they exchange seven U lambs in order to swear an oath to one another and form a covenant. And what is covenant? Well, we all know this as well. Covenant is a family formed by oath swearing. All right? So you want to become family member of someone who's not related to you by blood, you swear an oath to them and you form a family. Now the Jubilee was the culmination of Israel's liturgical calendar. Okay? We find it in Leviticus 25. The liturgical calendar explanation, Leviticus begins back in chapter 23 and it begins with the festival, which is the shortest duration, which is the weekly Sabbath and then it builds up to festivals that you celebrate on an annual basis and then ultimately super annual basis. In other words, festivals that you celebrate on cycles of multiple years and the one great festival that had the longest period of duration was the Jubilee. So it was like the culmination of the whole liturgical calendar of Israel. All comes to have the greatest feast and this is the year of Jubilee. So of course this is all based on God's covenant with the people of Israel and so we see these multiples of sevens, seven times, seven years, four and ninety years, it's like Sabbath squared, okay? Covenant squared and then you celebrate Jubilee. So all these ideas of family and of restoration and forgiveness that Dr. Healy was telling us about, teaching us about all comes to all comes to fruition at this time. You shall hallow the 50th year and proclaim, thank you, proclaim liberty throughout the land. It shall be a Jubilee for you. Each of you shall return. By the way, this line from Leviticus 2510, this is on the Liberty Bell down in Philly actually. You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land. So our country, you know, our whole, our whole ethos has been shaped by these biblical concepts. You ever noticed how our capital, by the way, you know, Washington D.C., it's surrounded on three sides by Mary land, right? And then underneath it is Virginia, you know? You think the Blessed Mother doesn't have some special purpose for the U.S.? I think she does, amen? And these deep biblical concepts are really present kind of despite some of the tendencies of our founding fathers. So the Jubilee was all about covenant, was covenant fruition. Where's the other book of the Bible where we find seven upon seven upon seven? Where's that? Book of Revelation, right? All those sevens of sevens of sevens. What's that all about in the book of Revelation? Well, it's all covenant fulfillment. That's all the repetitions of sevens there are teaching us covenant culmination because that's where everything wraps up. And likewise, the Jubilee was the culmination of the liturgical calendar. So seven upon seven, everything is coming together. And as Dr. Healy so well pointed out, this released everyone from debt, released everyone from servitude, so everybody could go home to their ancestral property and be reunited to their family and be restored to freedom. And so what are they gonna do, you know, when all these alienated cousins and sons and so on come, you know, wandering back from where they've been exiled or enslaved, etc., and get back to the family property, what are you gonna do? Well, have a cookout, of course. So I just see the, you know, the day of atonement, because this was on the day of atonement and that's very important because you see how this happens. First, forgiveness of sin is affected. First, that relationship with God is restored through the forgiveness of sin. And then relationships between human beings are likewise restored. That was the principle of the Jubilee. Excuse me. It's proclaimed on the day of atonement. But notice what comes first. First comes reconciliation with God, then comes reconciliation with other human beings. We get this concept. So the year of Jubilee was, as Dr. Healy pointed out, a socio-economic expression of a spiritual reality. You know what our problem in America is? We get the cart before the horse. We're trying to reconcile all of, you know, people of diverse backgrounds, etc., without being concerned at all with reconciliation with God. But divine revelation gets it right. And divine revelation insists that when first needs to experience forgiveness of God, then one can share that forgiveness that one has experienced with your fellow human beings. The vertical takes precedent. And as long as we're seeking for purely political, purely materialistic solutions to our problems, you know, trying to do what the UN does, which is reconcile people without worrying about reconciliation with God, it's never gonna work. Has it been working? No. Okay. So what should we do? Well, try the same thing again and hope for different results, right? That's smart. That always works. So we keep doing this. But no. Meanwhile, the scriptures are crying out to us, you got to be reconciled with God first. First reconciliation with God, then the peace which is established in the human heart can spread into society. We try to establish peace in society without worrying about the human heart. And it doesn't work. It's not going to work. Okay. So understand that. So the theological is primary. So they have these cookouts, you know, so I see, I see the, you know, the day of Atom on the year of Jubilee and you're looking out over the Israelite countryside, you have rolling hills and what they call the Shefalah, you know, and you got the mountain range there and you got the sea coast down there and you're looking out. And all of a sudden you see smoke rising from all over. And what is that? That's the charcoal grills, you know, they're having lamb chops, you know, and beef bratwurst, right? Not pork bratwurst. Beef bratwurst, you know, they're grilling, you know, charcoal, no gas grills. Gas grills are toi va, that's an abomination, right? Okay. I learned to grill in downtown Grand Rapids, down in the hood, and we did not use gas grill. I can't even say what we call people that use gas grills. I mean, what's, what's the point of that? You just cook inside if you want to cook on gas. It's going in your kitchen. You got to gas stove in your kitchen. You can go inside. What's that? You know, that takes no skill. It's like hunting with an automatic weapon. I mean, like, what's the point? You know, charcoal. So the ancient Israelites are very pure. It's a charcoal, you know, so, you know, throw those burgers on there, throw those lamb chops on there. Let's celebrate, okay, because it's a day of atonement. So he had all that wonderful smell of grilling meat all over in its family, its family restoration. And that's what Dr. Hanso so accurately pointed out, you know, and I'm right with him. Is this something I addressed in my dissertation? This abuse of the jubilee to argue for some kind of communist or socialist utopia. The problem with that is communism and socialism always or always ignores the family when the jubilee was fundamentally family oriented. And I've been, you know, Father Louis Morosny is going to be speaking at this conference. I've talked with him about this, even asked him to write something about this. But we got to start talking about the socioeconomic impact of the family that say, for example, marriage and family policy is a matter of social justice. Okay, we've conceded the whole social justice argument to people that want to have big government solutions and throw a lot of money at the problem. You know, we've been throwing money at the problem since Lyndon Baines Johnson. Okay, has it worked? Do we have a great society? No, we don't. We have a miserable society is what we got. And we keep throwing more money and we keep printing more money and throwing more money. And what do we not talk about? We don't talk about chastity. You know, chastity is a social justice issue, not fathering children that you're not going to take care of. Okay, entering into the covenant bonds before you begin to raise a family. Okay, marriage is a social justice issue. Biggest predictor of poverty in America? Fatherlessness. Okay, we don't talk about that. That's not politically correct. Okay, but we can't concede that issue. Okay, we got to bring the family back into front and center. Okay, the family is a socio is a social justice issue. And even apart from material wealth, it's psychological. Okay, we have all these broken families when you grow up not being assured that you are the product of love between your father and mother that the two persons that brought you into the world loved each other and you were the fruit of their love. See, that leads to psychological health. Amen. And that's what the scourge and divorce and all broken homes and casual sexuality and what that does is it raises up a generation where am I loved? Am I the fruit of love? Why am I here? Am I the product of a drunken bout? All this kind of thing. And even if you do well, even if you make money and are successful by external measures, you have that disorder inside. You have that lack of health, that lack of wholeness because you're not assured of that. We don't even talk about that. But the Jubilee was all about family. The Jubilee was all about making sure that the family stayed intact, that we didn't have broken families due to the father being enslaved and we didn't have fatherlessness due to a man being alienated from his family and having to work for somebody else for slave wages and all of that. So it insured land. So the family had a place for itself, a place where they could bury their ancestors and could remember their grandparents, etc., remember their family history. The Jubilee was all oriented to that. And that's what so many scholars don't want to talk about when they discuss the Jubilee. They want to talk about some kind of socialist redistribution. They don't want to talk about family and land and tradition. These things that really lead to psychological and spiritual health. Well, let's move on and talk about this. As Dr. Healy pointed out, the Israelites at best were inconsistent about observing the Jubilee. And it became an issue in their relationship with God. It was a manifestation of their larger pattern of covenant breaking. And so in 2nd Chronicles 3620, near the end of the history of Israel, as a monarchy, we read about the king of Babylon Nebuchadnezzar who took into exile in Babylon those who escaped from the sword until the establishment of the king of Persia to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had enjoyed its Sabbath. All the days that it laid desolate, it kept Sabbath to fulfill 70 years. So God waited and over a period of roughly 500 years, they did not keep the Sabbath year. They did not keep the Jubilee. And as it were, these things are adding up. And at that end of that period, God sent as judgment upon them the Babylonian army, which took them exile and they left the land. And then finally the land had its rest. Okay, there's also an ecological dimension to the Sabbath year and the Jubilee, allowing nature to rest. And the Israelites had robbed nature of its opportunity to rest. They had violated the natural order. And so that natural order needed to be restored. So they were removed from the land so the land could recoup its rest. And roughly the time that they were in Babylon in exile, 70 years, corresponded to the Sabbath years that they failed to keep. Okay, so this is something to think about. You know, when we fail to rest to honor God, God sometimes has to send us something that makes us rest. Okay, it's like illness or unemployment or inability to work or whatever. You know, there's a kind of a natural rhythm to this when we violate the created order by refusing to take God's opportunities and his commands to rest. It comes back to us. It boomerangs on us. And this was the case with the people of Israel. And so that period of exile between roughly, you know, 597 and around 527 BC, when they were experiencing exile at the hands of the Babylonians, was this time of rest of the land. And this violation of the Sabbath year and the Jubilee caused the prophets to enter more deeply into prayer. And the Holy Spirit began to reveal to them that the hopes and the expectations that were embedded in the Jubilee were going to be fulfilled in the latter days, fulfilled in a time of completion, which would be associated with the coming of the servant of the Lord who we later come to recognize as the Messiah. And so we read in Isaiah 61, the Spirit of the Lord is a God is upon me. This is the servant of the Lord speaking in the first person, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, sent me to bind up the brokenhearted to proclaim liberty to the captives. And there we have that key phrase, which is kind of ancient Hebrew. By the time of Isaiah, the language of Leviticus was already like King James English is to us. It sounded old fashioned and out of date. But Isaiah uses this old term, Karadaror, to proclaim liberty to captives, which for the listeners would heart to that ancient passage of Leviticus 25 about the year of Jubilee. And that's associated with the coming of the God's servant and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. We noticed that as well. Another way of talking about the Jubilee year. So Isaiah saw that this would be fulfilled, but Isaiah does not give us a chronology about when it's going to be fulfilled. The only prophet who gives us a chronology for the fulfillment of these Jubilee hopes is the prophet Daniel. And this is in a key passage of Daniel Daniel chapter nine. Now in the context of Daniel nine, what's going on is that the prophet Daniel is noticing that the Babylonian oppression of the people of Israel is has come to an end. And the prophet Jeremiah said that this Babylonian oppression would end after 70 years. And so Daniel notices that it's ended. And yet the restoration of the people of Israel that Jeremiah predicted is not yet coming to be. It's not coming to fruition. And so Daniel enters into prayer and he begins to repent. It's an intercessory prayer in Daniel nine. He steps forward like Moses of old and intercedes for the people of Israel and says, Lord, bring this bring these promises that you spoke through the prophet Jeremiah. Bring them to fulfillment, even though we have not repented. And this is key. Where are these prophecies of restoration after the 70 years of Babylonian captivity? They are in Jeremiah 25 and in Jeremiah 29. But the prophet Jeremiah put a condition though. He put a condition on the fulfillment of that restoration after 70 years. He said, if you repent, if you seek the Lord with your whole heart. And that was what was missing. If you look in Daniel nine, Daniel nine, Daniel prays back to the Lord and says, Lord, all these punishments have fallen upon us. Our land has been taken away. Our city's been destroyed. We've been taken out of Babylon. And despite all of that, we have still not repented. And that Daniel sees as the reason why that promise fulfillment has not come about, even though the 70 years of Babylon have clearly ended. And so Daniel's praying there in Daniel nine, repenting on behalf of his people, and then God in his mercy sends to Daniel, Gabriel, the angel. And Gabriel speaks to Daniel says, Oh, Daniel, 70 weeks of years are decreed for your people and the holy city. Okay, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and profit, and to anoint a most holy. Okay, a most holy. What you asked? Well, we'll come back to that. From the going forth of the word to restore Jerusalem to the coming of a Messiah, a prince, there shall be seven weeks and 62 weeks. Okay, let's stop for a moment and break this down. Now notice, first of all, Daniel says there's going to be 70 weeks of years. Now, Jeremiah had said 70 years. Gabriel now comes and says, No, actually, it's going to be extended to 70 weeks of years. Okay, 70 weeks of years, that's seven times 70. That is a period of 10 jubilees. The do the jubilee cycle in ancient Israel was 49 years long, because the 50th year was the jubilee, but just like our in our octaves, okay, the eighth day of the Easter octave is also the first day of the next weekly cycle. So likewise in ancient Israel, the 50th year, the jubilee year was also the first year of the next cycle. So these jubilee years fell at a distance of 49 years from each other. And so a jubilee cycle was 49 years long. So 70 weeks of years is 10 jubilees. And there was an expectation among the ancient people of Israel that a set of 10 jubilee cycles was sacred. It was like a great jubilee. And God would bring a great act of deliverance after that time. And we see that that's exactly what the angel Gabriel was predicting. But as long as we're on this, do we remember anywhere else in scripture, excuse me, where we have this reference to 70 times seven? Yeah, okay. I bet for a lot of us who never like made that connection. But when Peter comes to our Lord and says, Lord, how many times shall I forgive using the word afyemi, which is forgiveness in Greek. But afyasis or forgiveness was how jubilee language was translated in the ancient Greek Septuagint with reference to Leviticus 25. So that language of forgiveness harks back to that chapter in the Lord, of course, says not seven times, but 70 times seven. So that's a great jubilee. That's a period of 10 jubilee cycles. And so the angel Gabriel is telling Daniel it's going to be this extended period of time to do what? Finish transgression, put an end to sin, atone for iniquity, bring an everlasting righteousness. Those are all things that our Lord accomplished on the cross to seal both vision and profit. That means basically to close the canon of scripture. It's another thing that happened in the New Covenant and to anoint a Kodesh Kodeshim in Hebrew tonight, a Holy of Holies or a Most Holy. Now, there's no further noun in the Hebrew. So this could mean a Most Holy place, which would be the temple, okay, to anoint a temple, or this could be a Most Holy person, which would be the Messiah. So which is it? Temple or Messiah, temple, Messiah, temple, Messiah, like great, you know, taste great less filling. What is it? Well, both, okay, see all of the above, okay, because in the fulfillment of this prophecy, we're going to discover that the Most Holy person, that is the Messiah, is also the Most Holy place, John 221. He spoke of the temple of his body, right? So this Christ's body as a fulfillment of the temple. He is both temple and Messiah. And then verse 25, from the going forth of the word to restore Jerusalem to the coming of a Messiah, an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks and 62 weeks. Now, this is not how your English translations read. Probably all of your English translations read something like, from the going forth of the word to restore Jerusalem to the coming of Messiah, there should be seven weeks. And for 62 weeks, it will be rebuilt, et cetera, et cetera. Your English translations follow the Hebrew Masoretic text in its punctuation. But the punctuation of the Hebrew Masoretic text was not put in until about the year 700 AD, okay? If you go back to the ancient versions, the Greek and the Syriac and all the other different translations of the Old Testament that were made before the Masoretic punctuation, I don't want to get sidetracked off into what the Masoretic is. But the Masoretes were a school of scribes that flourished around Galilee, the Syriac Galilee, from around the year 700 AD to about 1000 AD. And they're the ones that for the first time devised a way to write down vows in Hebrew and to punctuate Hebrew. And so they wrote down their oral tradition at that later date. But when we go back earlier into the time of our Lord and before the time of our Lord into the centuries BC, we're talking about a Hebrew language that's being written without vows and without punctuation. And all of the ancient versions that we have that were translated in antiquity long before the Masoretic text was established by the Jewish scribes combined the seven and the 62 weeks. And so the Messiah comes after 69 weeks, that is to say at the end of this roughly 500 year period of time, the Messiah will come and then accomplish these things. All right. What is what is Gabriel doing here? Well, Daniel saw that Jeremiah had predicted 70 years of punishment for the people of Israel under Babylon during which time the land would recoup its Sabbath. But despite that 70 year punishment, the expected repentance of which Jeremiah speaks did not come about. And there's a principle in the law of Moses that if you're disciplined and you do not repent, you will be disciplined sevenfold. So we find this in Leviticus chapter 26. If by this discipline, which included exile, you are not turned to me, I will smite you sevenfold for your sins. So Gabriel is coming to the prophet Daniel and Daniel nine with a kind of bad news, good news message. The bad news is Daniel, the restoration that you're praying for, it's not going to happen immediately. The good news is it is going to happen. But it's going to be delayed by a factor of seven. So the 70 years of Babylon are going to become a roughly 500 year period during which the people of Judah are not going to be fully restored. They're going to in a sense continue in exile. They're going to continue with a kind of ongoing exile oppressed by their enemies without a son of David on the throne. As Daniel mentions, all this calamity has come upon us yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God turning for our iniquities and giving heed to thy truth. The repentance that Jeremiah makes contingent on the restoration of the people has not taken place. So as Gabriel says, 70 weeks of years are decreed for your people in Holy City to finish all of these things and to bring to culmination God's saving plan. And so Daniel is the only one who gives us this chronology. And so roughly from the time of Daniel we're expecting the Messiah to come about 500 years later. And of course that brings us to the time of our Lord. And this is why there was such messianic fervor during the time of Jesus. And it wasn't just surrounding our Lord. But if you read in the ancient Jewish historian Josephus, you'll discover that there are many messianic pretenders. And some of them are referred to even in, for example, the Book of Acts as men rose up and claimed to be the Messiah and many others that are of course not mentioned. And why all this messianic activity around the first century and really not before and really not later, it was because of the chronology of Daniel. Now during that period of time at the end of BC and the beginning of AD, we had the flourishing of a Jewish monastery on the shores of the Dead Sea that was part of the larger movement within Judaism called the Essene movement that was comparable in size to the Pharisees or the Sadducees. This Essene movement was a holiness movement. They were an eschatological movement. They expected the Messiah to come anytime soon. It was an eschatical movement. They practiced a lifestyle of self-denial. They alone practiced celibacy among the different groups of Jews. And of course, we know about them because they left us the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls are the remains of the thousand volumes that made up their library at the monastery that they maintained on the shores of the Dead Sea. And one of the last scrolls to be found and one of the most intriguing is a scroll that scholars call 11Q Melchizedek. And this is a prophecy that circulated among the Essenes. The ancient Jewish historian Josephus tells us that the Essenes were renowned for their prophets. And so this prophetic document takes these different scriptures related to Jubilee and interprets them concerning the coming of a Savior figure. So let's look at this. Concerning what the scripture says, in this year of Jubilee, you shall return every one of you to your property. It's a basic line from the Jubilee law. And what is also written, this is the manner of the remission. Every creditor shall remit the claim that is held against his neighbor because God's remission has been proclaimed. That's Deuteronomy 15. Dr. Healy mentioned this. This was the forgiveness of debt law that we find in Deuteronomy. So this Essenes author combines these release laws together and then interprets them and says, the interpretation is that it applies to the last days, the latter days about which Isaiah speaks, this end times. And it concerns the captives, just as Isaiah said, to proclaim the Jubilee to the captives. Isaiah 61. So Essenes author brings in Isaiah here. It's brilliant because modern critical scholars acknowledge that all of these texts are in fact connected in kind of a literary tradition. And this ancient Essenes author is pulling them together, even from the inheritance of Melchizedek, for they are the inheritance of Melchizedek who will return to them what is rightfully theirs. He will proclaim to them the Jubilee, thus releasing them from the debt of all their sins. Oh, this is fascinating. So Melchizedek is going to come back. Why on earth Melchizedek? Where did he come from? Well, that's always the question. Melchizedek is like the biblical Spider-Man. Where are you coming from? We used to sing with the electric company in elementary school. Where's Melchizedek coming from? That's the 50 million dollar question in biblical theology. Melchizedek just shows up in Genesis 14 and you could rightly ask, why on earth does this Essenes author connect ideas of Jubilee with Melchizedek? Well, if you go back to Genesis 14, what you find out is the Babylonians or the Mesopotamians, including the people associated with what later became Babylon, came into the land of Israel and they took Lot and his family and many others captive. So this is like a foreshadowing of the Babylonian captivity. These Mesopotamian kings took them captive and started to run off with them and then Abraham came and liberated them. And then after he liberated them from captivity and from bondage, he brought these liberated people back and Melchizedek blessed everybody. And so Melchizedek is associated with this liberation from being enslaved and from being held captive. And he was also a legitimate priest and king. So Abraham worked this kind of Jubilee for Lot and for many others and it was associated with the priestly ministry of Melchizedek. So this Essenes author looks into the future and sees Melchizedek coming back not to release everyone from monetary debt but to release them from the debt of sin. And then he goes on, this word will thus come in the first week of the Jubilee period that follows nine Jubilee periods. Okay, so we're working on these 10 Jubilees of Daniel 9. Then the day of atonement shall follow at the end of the 10th Jubilee period. This is the end of the 490 years predicted by Daniel. Look at how he's combining all these scriptures together. When he, excuse me, when he's speaking of Melchizedek shall atone for all the sons of light. That's a phrase that, sons of light is a phrase that we find in John and in Paul, but even before them we find it in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the people who are predestined to Melchizedek. So this great atonement for sins is going to happen at the end of this 490 years, roughly 500 year period foreseen by Daniel and that is going to be the time decreed for the year of Melchizedek's favor. Now Isaiah 61 2 says the year of the Lord's favor, but notice how Melchizedek is put in here in place of the Lord and for his hosts together with the holy ones of God, for a kingdom of justice or kingdom of judgment just as is written concerning him in the songs of David, God has taken his place in the counsel of God in the midst of the angels he holds judgment. Look at that Psalm 829 is quoted by this ancient author as referring to Melchizedek. The reference to God in Psalm 821 is taken as a reference to the figure of Melchizedek. So Melchizedek is somehow divine in this prophetic writing from the Essenes and he goes on, therefore Melchizedek will thoroughly prosecute the vengeance required by God statutes. In that day he will deliver them from the power of Belial. This is the Essenes term for Satan and from the power of all the spirits predestined to him. So it's delivery not from human slavery but again from slavery to Belial or Satan. And then further prophecies are applied to Melchizedek. It is written concerning him who says to Zion, your God reigns that's Isaiah 52.7 Zion in this passage is the sons of righteousness who uphold the covenant and turn from walking in the way of the people. That's probably a reference to the Essenes group that practiced repentance. But then your God in Isaiah 52.7 is Melchizedek who will deliver them from the power of Belial, Satan. Hey look at taking references to God and saying it's Melchizedek is God referred to in Scripture. Concerning what Scripture says, then you shall have the trumpet sounded throughout all the land of Israel. It goes back to Leviticus 25.9 and then our text breaks off. So this is absolutely fascinating eschatological exegesis of the Jubilee year laws of Leviticus 25 bringing in a divine Melchizedek who's going to actualize all these expectations at the end of the 500 year period predicted by the Prophet Daniel. And now we come back to this sermon at Nazareth. Okay so imagine brothers and sisters 11 Q. Melchizedek was this prophetic document that was circulating among the Essenes. The Essenes according to Josephus were comparable in size to other sects of Jews like the Pharisee movement and the Sadducee movement. And Josephus tells us that there were Essenes communities in every major city of Israel all through the land. There was an Essenes neighborhood in any city of Israel of any significant size. So everybody knew about the Essenes they were like Baptists they're everywhere okay. So you knew about them and you knew about their expectations and excuse me. So and people you know just like we have a general sense of what seven Daavatus believes or what what Methodists believe or what Baptists believe so on. So different groups of Jews had a sense for what was believed by these different groups so everybody had a sense for what the Essenes were expecting. So Jesus comes to Nazareth where he had been brought up and he went to the synagogue as his custom was on the Sabbath day and he stood up to read and there was given to him the book of the prophet Isaiah okay. Well that's unexceptional because Isaiah was the favorite prophet still is the favorite prophet. Isaiah is the prophet that dominates the Jewish and the Christian liturgy and lectionary and always has for as long as we've had historical records. Isaiah has been the most popular prophet to read and worship. So they gave him the prophet Isaiah. Well that's unexceptional that's like a that's like a you know a nice easy softball pitch here. Here you go here's Isaiah you know we're not going to give you anything difficult like Ezekiel or you know Zechariah or something like that you know just give you Isaiah. Isaiah is easy listening you know Isaiah is top 40 you know there's no can't go wrong with Isaiah. So give him Isaiah it's nice nice applied you know find something nice to read from Isaiah you can have a nice easy homily. He opened the book and find the place where it's written the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has joined me to preach good news to the poor. Send me to proclaim release to captains and recovery site to the blind to set up liberty those who are oppressed to proclaim the exceptional year of the Lord. Jesus opens up Isaiah and intentionally finds one of the most controversial passages in the whole prophetic book like come on visiting rabbi just go with something easy like Isaiah 11 or something you know or go to Isaiah 9 and talk about you know one day the Messiah is going to come. Why go to Isaiah 61 which is quoted as extensively in this Essene document and there's all this brouhaha going around within Judaism you know is Isaiah 61 really talking about the coming Melchizedek like the Essene say or is that a bunch of nonsense like the Sadducees say. So he finds this controversial passage that's associated with all these end times hopes from the Essenes. We know that that Nazareth was kind of Essene sympathetic because archaeologists just two or three years ago you know doing doing research in the Nazareth area found that they were practicing Essene farming practices in the first century during the time that our Lord lived there. They went down to the soil level and looked at the stuff in the soil found out that they that they were farming according to the way that you know the Essene said you had to farm. So the village of Nazareth seems to have been sympathetic with the Essene movement and Jesus finds this controversial passage he reads it and everybody's in shock like he read that well what's he gonna say about it then he closed the book gave it back to the attendant and sat down. Now Moses I never used to understand this passage at all because our homilists sit down when they're done preaching right so when Gia sits down I think oh we're not going to have a homily at Daily Mass today right yeah but that's wrong because in the Jewish tradition you preached sitting down so when he sits down that means I am going to give a homily I'm not just gonna read I'm gonna expound so we are gonna have a homily at today's you know Daily Mass at the synagogue so he sits down and now the people are electrified not only is he gonna read that but he's gonna preach on it so all the eyes of the synagogue were fixed on him yeah they're like what's he gonna say about this controversial passage that's associated with the coming of a divine Milt Kizadek by one of the largest movements within Judaism what does he say today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing that's the shortest most impactful Daily Mass homily you're ever gonna hear you know there's priests around that you say are the master the short homily right there's a Dominican priest up in Youngstown that I frequently hear is like you know he says he's master the three-minute homily but but you can't beat this what's he is saying I'm the fulfillment and that's the homily amen yeah I'm the fulfillment brothers and sisters it's me this talk about me yeah yeah I'm the one here yeah that's that's me it's that yeah mm-hmm that's my biography right there that that Isaiah is talking about there okay wow so what so you Jesus of Nazareth whose dad we know whose dad was a you know craftsman and whose mom we know when he's got cousins in the village and stuff like that you are the divine Milt Kizadek who's come to to inaugurate the eschatological jubilee well wow that is a bold claim but you know what talk is cheap let's see your game bring on your game well what does Jesus do just a few verses later he goes down to Capernaum in the synagogue there there was a man who had a spirit of an unclean demon cried out ah what have you to do with us Jesus of Nazareth have you come to destroy us I know who you are the holy one of God you're the divine Milt Kizadek Jesus rebuked him be silent come out of him and he came out of him having done him no harm they were amazed said what is this word with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits and they come out and reports of him when are out from every place in the surrounding region I bet because not only is he claiming this but then he's proving it what did what did they say what did 11 q mil kizadek say it said that mil kizadek would free them from the power of belial and this is what Jesus is doing he's exercising people he's doing what they expected the divine mil kizadek to do all right so freeing him from the freeing people from the power of satan that's one of the roles of the mil kizadek to come what else well the next chapter this is very intentional on Luke's part the very next chapter behold men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed but finding no way to bring him in they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed into the midst before Jesus and when he saw their faith he said man your sins are forgiven you and the scribes and Pharisees began to question saying who can forgive sins but God don't write that's the point God is mil kizadek is Jesus okay he is the divine priest king who is to come freeing people from bondage to satan and bondage to sin so look you know i used to think that the gospel of luke was written you know just to Gentile Christians and that's kind of a common thing and and there's truth to that very very much truth it's many things in luke are written in such a way that they're accessible and that they gain the trust and the admiration of people that were well educated in the greco-roman system but there's many dimensions to the gospel of luke and when i was working on my book on the dead sea scrolls i found this connection that the beginning of Jesus's ministry you know he our lord fulfills what the essines were expecting of the anointed mil kizadek at the other time is that accidental can that be an accidental i don't think it can be coincidental so there's many audiences i think the essines were one of the audiences to whom luke was writing to show to them look jesus of nazareth meets the expectations that you have for the one who's going to inaugurate the end times jubilee so they went up on the mountain well okay so great so jesus does this but like that was then this is now how is this going to be made permanent how is this going to extend through time well look watch what our lord does goes up the mountain called to him those who he desired they came to him he appointed 12 to be with him and he sent them out to preach and to have authority to cast out demons so he gives this jubilee power of freedom from satan to the 12 to be perpetuated in them and their successors and likewise in matthew 18 he gathers the 12 together and he says whatever you bind on there should be bound in heaven whatever you loosen your shall be loosed in heaven can't talk about all that this means but this includes among other things the power to forgive sin to forgive it or to choose not to parallel with what john records receive the holy spirit if you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven if you retain the sins of any they are retained so that the two full power of the divine melchizedek who's going to inaugurate the eschatological jubilee to free from slavery to satan and from the debt of sin is manifested in jesus early ministry given to the apostles and to the successors to be perpetuated so that we're living in perpetual jubilee and i had a beautiful experience a couple of years ago i'll try to keep this super short i was in san diego a lot of caldean catholics in san diego these are iraqi christians traditional iraqi christians and the caldean tradition have a beautiful liturgy of their own and i was speaking at john paul the great university down there and they have a couple of caldean priests who also teach and one of them pulled me aside and he was like you know explained to me the beauty of their liturgy and and he said uh you know i just want to share with you some of the riches you know i know that your old testament scholar you're into hebra and so on and so he gave me a bunch of books about the caldean language and the caldean electionary and spiritual traditions and he gave me one book on the caldean liturgy and he handed it to me and i took it and i looked at the title and chills began to go up and down my spine because of what i had worked on my dissertation on and i looked at the title and it was called perpetual jubilee that was how they describe their liturgy and in the caldean rite the liturgical year is divided into units of seven weeks every liturgical season is seven weeks long culminating on a 50th day because they got it they saw it that the liturgy of the new covenant is the fulfillment of these covenantal jubilee expectations of the people of israel so how is this perpetuated so how do i experience jubilee well one of the through the sacraments ultimately and most poignantly through a neglected sacrament the sacrament of reconciliation is any among you sick let him call for the presbyters of the church let him pray over him the prayer of faith will save the sick man if he has committed sins he will be forgiven this is an early form of the sacrament of reconciliation when the presbyters when we later call priests would pray over those who had sinned therefore confess your sins to one another that you may be healed the sacrament of reconciliation is one of the most direct ways that the church perpetuates jubilee by freeing people from slavery to satan and from the debt of sin father gabriel amourth about whom a movie is being made right now with i believe russell crow preparing to play the role of father amour this is going to be really interesting okay but father amourth wrote in his book his 1999 book an exorcist tells the story many times i've written that satan is much more rage when we take souls away from him through confession than when we take bodies away through exorcism you see a confession has a spiritual warfare dimension okay confession is is the first lines in the church's battle against slavery to satan amen and that's going to be the theme of my breakout talk so i'm not going to go any further with that for right now but if you come to the breakout talk this afternoon we're going to be talking about that spiritual warfare and confession and confession as as liberation liberation from the evil one and all that means and the biblical roots of that and its pastoral implications but for right now we got to wrap up look israel's hopes for the jubilee were fulfilled in jesus christ the new covenant is the era of perpetual jubilee and this closet that we go into to open up our souls is not a courtroom it's not a judgment chamber it is liberation amen amen let's pray praise the lord praise the lord amen