Why is this apostolate called Second Exodus?
During the 1990s, at one of the annual meetings of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars, I saw Karl Keating. He asked me what I was doing at the time, and I told him I was working on a book called A Path to Glory. He asked why that name, and I explained in terms of Thomas Gray’s Elegy. The path to Rabbi Yeshua leads to glory. Karl replied that it would not be a good title. He said the job of a book title is to arouse the browsing bookstore visitor’s curiosity enough that he will pull it from its place on the shelf and take a closer look. A Path to Glory, Karl believed, would not do it.
I retreated to my hotel room to think about it. Then I called up Deacon Frank Earley, my first mentor in the Faith, who was also at the conference. I told him what Karl had said and asked his opinion. He replied, “This is extraordinary! As I picked up the phone I saw before my eyes a cloud with “Second Exodus” written on it. At that moment I had no idea what it meant. But your question leads me to believe it’s the name God wants for your book.”
I told him I would try to write a few paragraphs explaining why it was “Second Exodus.” If the explanation came easily, we would know it was from God. I wrote:
The First Exodus is the Passover, when each Jewish family was personally saved Ex 12:13 by participating in the body and blood of a sacrificed lamb.
Rabbi Yeshua told us of the Second Exodus at the time of the Transfiguration. “And behold, two men talked with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his exodus, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem” Lk 9:30–31.
The second exodus is Rabbi Yeshua‘s passion and death on the Cross, which is our exodus from the slavery of sin and death Gen 3:23–24 to the promised kingdom of heaven Lk 23:43 by participating in the Body and Blood of the Lamb of God.
It did come easily, and so the book and the entire apostolate were from that day forward called Second Exodus.
This is part of God’s larger plan to start teaching us by physical events which we can recognize easily and then transition us to spiritual events which we can recognize later in our development, but which are absolutely necessary for the promised kingdom of heaven where we will live as pure spirit until the Second Coming.
God’s original covenant with us Gen 17:7 began with circumcision Gen 17:11–13, a physical sign that exists only during his lifetime because the Torah binds a man only during his lifetime Rom 7:1. But Rabbi Yeshua fulfilled it with the spiritual sign of baptism, an invisible mark on our souls that only God can see, but survives as pure spirit just as our souls survive as pure spirit in heaven, purgatory or hell. God’s law for man was originally written down in a physical medium, a Torah scroll. But God promised a new covenant that he would write upon our hearts Jer 31:31–33. And Rabbi Yeshua fulfilled it with his New and Eternal Covenant.
Rabbi Yeshua had told Rabbi Kefa, “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven Mt 16:19, and warned us that without his baptism Jn 3:3,5 or his Body and Blood Jn 6:53 we could never enter the kingdom of heaven because the keys to the kingdom of heaven are pure spirit.
This is why he told us, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” Jn 12:24–25.
Jewish Tradition looks for a Second Exodus. Moses and Elijah were with Rabbi Yeshua representing the Law and the Prophets Mt 22:40. Moses represented the Law, while Elijah represented the prophets as one of Rabbi Yeshua’s two witnesses for the ingrafting Rev 11:3.
In brief, the Second Exodus is Rabbi Yeshua, the Lamb of God, Jn 1:29, 36, who spiritually saved us by the one single sacrifice of his Body and Blood. Each time the sacrifice of the Lamb of God is re-presented (zakhor) we personally participate, and are saved Lk 23:43 because love is stronger than death.