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Jewish Origins Of Christian Liturgy

Jewish Origins Of Christian Liturgy. Creation and the Sabbath. We derive a time for worship from the 6-day creation story, in which the cosmos is structured and ordered--in time—and the time finds its perfection in the Sabbath : God rests, ponders creation, and sees it’s good.

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Jewish Origins Of Christian Liturgy

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  1. Jewish Origins Of Christian Liturgy

  2. Creation and the Sabbath • We derive a time for worship from the 6-day creation story, in which the cosmos is structured and ordered--in time—and the time finds its perfection in the Sabbath: God rests, ponders creation, and sees it’s good. • The world is a place for man to worship the Creator, and God hallows a specific time for that worship to take place: namely, the Sabbath.

  3. Creation and Fall • In human history, man finds himself in a state of guilt before God because of sin. Exitus is not just Creation, but an exit from God by sin. • We want to make the return to God on our own (Tower of Babel), and worship is an attempt to overcome guilt and to return to God and right order.  • The Christian understanding as an exit from God and a return to Him is not based on a coming out and then destruction of self, but a coming out and then a return to God as man’s ultimate perfection: • God became man so that we could become gods (i.e., drawn into the Sonship by way of adoption). • Purpose of Liturgy: So we don’t fall away from God into nothingness, but we return to God. As history unfolds, it’s moving towards its perfection: the 2nd coming of Christ and judgment. The cosmos is transformed and not destroyed—true sacrifice heals what is broken.

  4. Liturgy and the Purpose of Existence • The purpose of existence is: TO KNOW, LOVE, AND SERVE GOD • Mother Teresa, “God does not require that we be successful, only that we be faithful.” • Knowing, loving, and serving God requires establishing a relationship with Him. • What is the best way to establish a relationship with God? Through liturgy—the way God gave us to worship Him.

  5. Glory to God in the Highest…and Peace to His People on Earth • Peace in the universe and with God is the essential intention of worship. • One’s relationship with God must be in good order for one’s relations with everyone else to be in good order (this is also called peace) . Thus, worship is essential for the right kind of human existence in the world. Man can’t “make” worship; it must be revealed. • Look at what happens when man makes his own worship: Aztec sacrifice, etc.

  6. The Role of Sacrifice in Liturgy • Liturgy is the public worship of God. • Definition of Sacrifice: “the offering of a sense-perceptible gift to the Deity as an outward manifestation of our veneration for Him and with the object of attaining communion with Him” (J. Pohle on newadvent.org) • Sacrifice has been a part of ritual or religious worship from time immemorial. Why? Man wants to connect with God but feels himself unworthy before Him. Sacrifice signifies humility.

  7. Difference in Hebrew Sacrifice • Sacrifice in the Iliad and other Religions: • Human history is arbitrarily controlled by passionate and swayable gods;gods must be sacrificed to in order to placate or sway them. • Sacrifice for the Israelites was not about humans trying desperately to satisfy an angry God, like the ancient Aztecs did with human sacrifices, or the Greeks. • Thinking that our actions can manipulate history and control providence and the gods is called pride.   • Because God provides the Sacrifice, the Israelites see God as coming forth on his own initiative to set them free from their sins (i.e., expiation).

  8. Near Sacrifice of Isaac • Gen 22 • The idea of representative sacrifice: the animal represents us, expiates our sins. • Starts with Abraham, Isaac, and the replacement lamb, foreshadowing the Lamb of God • Order of priority is also a theme in Exodus: the gift of the Promised Land is not for the land itself and becoming a nation with its own borders and army; it’s a means to Israel’s freedom to worship properly.

  9. Ex 5:1, 9:1, 9:13 Freedom and Service Exodus Event Luke 1:73-75 • The story of the Exodus teaches us this: God has established specific ways to worship because of specific things he wants to accomplish through the liturgy. Exodus reveals two things: • 1) The promised land, • 2) The nature of the service God wants His people to perform for Him. • Most of the time we only focus on the 1 part of the story • Moses doesn’t actually know what this service is when he’s negotiating with Pharaoh—God will provide the manner of worship once they get there. • Who knows how to worship God better than God?

  10. Ex 20 10 Commandments • The morality of Israel (10 Commandments) gives them a way to live consistent with the worship they’ve been called to perform. (Notice how the 1st three commandments deal with Love of God). • Whenever they overemphasize the wrong part of life, like becoming a military power, they fall as a nation because they have fragmented the integrated way of life God has given them, in which worship, law and ethics are interwoven

  11. Importance of the Temple • King Solomon built God a glorious house—the Temple. And God took up residence in the Temple (1 Kings 8:1-11). The Temple is God's place, where his presence and glory were. • The Torah specifically commands us not to offer sacrifices wherever we feel like it; we are only permitted to offer sacrifices in the place that God has chosen for that purpose. Deut. 12:13-14. • It would be a sin to offer sacrifices in any other place, akin to stealing candles and wine to observe Shabbat. 

  12. Yom Kippur • With the foundation of the Temple worship centers around the temple. • Read Leviticus 16 • KEY WORDS: • Propitiatory = “cover” • Bullock = “young bull” • Azazel = literally means “scapegoat” • Atone = make a sacrifice for one’s sins

  13. The Day of Atonement: the Ritual • “the sanctuary, inside the veil” (Lev 16:2)… • The high priest was allowed to enter the inner sanctuary (“holy of holies”) only once a year on the day of atonement. • They were awaiting the presence of God there.

  14. The Scapegoat (“Azazel”) • “When the high priest has completed the atonement rite for the Temple, he shall bring forward the other goat (Azazel). Laying both hands on its head, he shall confess over it all the sinful faults and transgressions of the Israelites, and so put them on the goat’s head” (Lev 16:20-21). • Sounds kind of like Confession, but way harder…

  15. That was random.

  16. The Prophets • Though Israel could have followed God (he lived among them, after all), they didn't. They turned from God. They turned away from God. • They didn't look after the poor and widows among them. They worshiped false gods. • Ezekiel describes this time in a vision he saw in Ezekiel 10: God's glory actually left the Temple. God, like his people, was homeless. And it was their fault—they had turned from him.

  17. Babylonian Exile 586 B.C. • In 586 BCE King Nebuchadnezzar II of BabylonconqueredJudah • According to the Hebrew Bible, he destroyed Solomon's Temple and exiled the Jews to Babylon. • Resurrection, Daniel 12:2 • Universal Salvation, Isaiah 11:23-12:1, 45:1-3 • ESSENTIAL QUESTION: How do we worship (sacrifice) to God without a temple? • In the Babylonian exile, the Israelites had nothing to offer God, being apart from the Temple. But there was a longing for sacrifice that they could no longer engage in. So that led to an interior sacrifice of praise and to the interiority of the synagogue, in which they could listen to the Word of God, but only with a longing for and ordering to the Temple.

  18. Spiritual Sacrifice • Spiritual Sacrifices: “Sacrificing outside the temple” • Essential in the Diaspora theology is the understanding of sacrificing outside the temple as charitable actions. • For Jews living in the Diaspora, the temple became a distant ideal of Jewish community. Charity becomes a way that a person can commit him or herself wholly to Judaism, and preserve their souls for immortality. • This notion was expressed in the books of Tobit, Esther, Judith, and is expressed herein verse 3:6. The connection of individual and “burnt offerings” makes the connection between the person’s charitable actions and sacrificial offering to God. • All of these books reaffirm the development of sacrifice as righteous living. The typical understanding of sacrifice was being replaced, know sacrifice should be performed with charitable actions that can be performed anywhere (Tob. 4:7, Jdt. 16:16). Tobit’s last words portray this, • “’So now, my children, consider what almsgiving accomplishes and how righteousness delivers.’ As he said this he died in his bed” (Tob 14:11 RSV). • These texts were being written to the Jews of the diaspora, ppl who could not sacrifice, these became they way they communed with God 

  19. Prophets: Spiritual Sacrifice • The prophet Jeremiah was martyred because he challenged Israel’s assumption that they were inviolable because they had the Temple. God wants righteousness at the level of interiority • Psalm 51: “Burnt offering from me you would refuse”—there’s a critique of Temple sacrifice—“You desire truth in the inner being…create in me a clean heart and put a new spirit within me.” Interior cleanliness and justice before God, then, is what is needed.

  20. Spiritual Sacrifice • Hosea 6:6 “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” • Micah 6:8 “Micah says God requires them "to do justly, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with thy God" (6:8). • Jeremiah maintains the same attitude. Your "frankincense from Sheba, and the sweet cane," burnt offerings and sacrifices are not pleasing to God (6:20; 14:12).  • the Prophets emphasized only the ancient and venerable truth that God valued most highly the interior sacrifice of obedience, and rejected as worthless purely external acts without pious dispositions. He demanded of Cain the right sentiment of sacrifice (cf. Gen iv 4 sq.), and proclaimed through Samuel: "Obedience is better than sacrifices" (1 Samuel 15:22).  • Romans 12 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice,acceptable to God, which is yourspiritual service of worship.” • 1 Peter 2:5 you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. • Jn 14:15 If you love me keep my commandments

  21. Return of God’s Presence? • In 538 BCE, Cyrus the Great of Persia conquered Babylon and took over its empire. Cyrus issued a proclamation granting subjugated nations (including the people of Judah) religious freedom. • According to the Hebrew Bible 50,000 Judeans returned to Judah and rebuilt the temple. A second group of 5,000, led by Ezra and Nehemiah. • This Second temple, however, did not house God’s presence—or the Ark of the Covenant. • While the exile turned the Jews to spiritual sacrifices, they longed for the return of God’s presence and friendship with God… • Mal. 3:1-4

  22. Paschal Mystery Timeline CreationFallAbrahamExodusTempleExileProphets • The idea of representative sacrifice: the animal represents us, expiates our sins. Starts with Abraham, Isaac, and the replacement lamb, foreshadowing the Lamb of God,  who is not just a replacement but a true representative. God provides that which is to be sacrificed. Also foreshadowed in Exodus with the Passover lamb instead of firstborn son being sacrificed and eaten. With Abraham and Isaac, God gives the lamb and we offer it back. And in Exodus, the blood of the lamb ransoms the firstborn of all families. • Animal sacrifice is recognized to be deeply insufficient. Even given the God-given form of replacement sacrifice, there’s an ongoing insufficiency (you can see it in Stephen’s speech in Acts about the insufficiency of Temple Sacrifice, which never brought about a full union between God and the people. • Read and give back ground on PS 51 • John the Baptist immediately recognizes Jesus as the lamb of God.  

  23. The Presentation of Jesus • Luke 2:22-40 • The Gospel of Luke is very concerned with the temple. The temple is the place of encounter between God and human beings. At the temple, the Jewish people are most in touch with their mission. The mission is to bring the worship of the true God to the whole world. • But Simeon exclaims in the reconstructed temple of Jerusalem, that was vacant of the divine presence, that this baby is the Glory of God, The presence of God had returned to the temple. But this presence is in the form of a cloud, but a recently born baby.

  24. Jesus Christ and the Divine Dilemma • Sin destroys the infinite bridge between man and God. In order for the bridge to be repaired, justice requires an infinite sacrifice, but it also requires it from a man (the wages of sin are death). Man can never offer this sacrifice because he’s not pure and he’s not infinite. • God becomes man and dies for us. Jesus is the perfect high priest offering the perfect, purest, infinite sacrifice. This suffices.

  25. Temple, Priest Sacrifice • Temple- Jesus is God’s presence on Earth • Priest- Jesus offers the Sacrifice to reconcile us to God • Sacrifice- The sacrifice He offers is himself

  26. The Christian Liturgy • The Christian Liturgy is formulated as a development and fulfillment of Jewish forms of worship. • Sacrifice happened in the Temple; reading of the Torah happened in synagogues. The Mass combines both elements, with JC as the fulfillment of the Messianic hopes. • The veil of the Temple is torn in two at JC’s death because he is now present on the mercy seat, where they always sought him. • JC is present in the tabernacle.

  27. Communion with God • Finally, with the perfect sacrifice of Christ, we can achieve the ultimate goal of sacrifice: communion with God. • The Eucharist is the re-presentation or tapping into Christ’s sacrifice so we can experience communion with God.

  28. Connection between Presentation and Crucifixtion • And thus Mary is the new Ark of the Covenant. In her womb she carried the Bread that has come down from heaven. In her womb she carried the new high priest. In her womb she carried the fulfillment of the law. • As the new ark of the covenant the Most Holy Virgin Mary brings the God-Man to Jerusalem and restores the Glory of God to the temple. And by her yes, she restores the Glory of God to our hearts as well. Jesus is the new temple. He is the place of reconciliation between Man and God because he is both Man and God. • The presentation in the temple which is perfected and fulfilled on Calvary, is made present to us at every Mass. Jesus offers his body and blood to the Father. The Son is presented to the Father in every Catholic Church. Our salvation is affected by this. The Mass is the source and summit of the Christian life. It makes present for us the Cross.

  29. Conclusions • The practice of Liturgy begins in Genesis with rest on the 7th day/Sabbath. • Liturgy becomes an attempt to return to God after the Fall. • Sacrifice becomes an important part of liturgy as man recognizes his need to change before he can have communion with God. • Gradual Revelation reveals the transition from sensible to spiritual sacrifice. • Jesus becomes the perfect high priest offering the perfect sacrifice. This alone can repair man’s relationship with God.

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