In Hebrews chapter 9, we discover more about the pattern of temple worship and sacrifice and how Jesus, as He came not to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it, has offered a perfect substitutionary sacrifice for our sins:
24For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;25not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another--26He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.
The Jewish fall feast of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is being observed around the world beginning at sunset tomorrow, which in Israel, for instance, will be around early- to mid-afternoon. It is a solemn occasion and is accompanied by prayer and fasting and hopefully introspection and confession. Jesus has offered Himself once and for all to take away our sins, to give His life so that the penalty, the punishment for sin, might be paid and that we could walk in His perfect peace and freedom. Out of His great love, He gave His life so that, by identifying with His death by dying to ourselves, and confessing and repenting from our sins, we might experience all He has in store for us.
Tomorrow evening, Jews will begin to observe the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur. The process of sacrifice in an effort to make things right with God once a year, fell on the shoulders of the High Priest, who would enter the Holy of Holies once per year. The prescription for this special day was found in Leviticus 16:
30For on that day the priest shall make atonement for you, to cleanse you, that you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord.31It is a sabbath of solemn rest for you, and you shall afflict your souls. It is a statute forever.32And the priest, who is anointed and consecrated to minister as priest in his father's place, shall make atonement, and put on the linen clothes, the holy garments;33then he shall make atonement for the Holy Sanctuary, and he shall make atonement for the tabernacle of meeting and for the altar, and he shall make atonement for the priests and for all the people of the assembly.
As part of the Yom Kippur celebration, the High Priest sent a goat out into the wilderness, as a symbol that the sins of the people had been taken away. This was called the "scapegoat" - which is a term that is used commonly used today to describe someone who is blamed for bad things that happen, the person who takes the hit for the transgressions of others.
Now, a company called, G-dcast has invented what is called, and I kid you not, the "E-Scapegoat". By the way the company's name omits the "o" in God because many Jewish people will not spell out that name. On the website, G-dcast.com, you can find all sorts of information about practices of Judaism, with a heavy dose of cartoon animation. In the middle of the home page, you're invited to "Atone online for Yom Kippur with eScapegoat. Add yours!"
Click on "Atone Now", and you're taken to a page that has a large animated goat on it with the words, "Atone with the e-Scapegoat". It tells you that the e-Scapegoat is roaming the Internet collecting sins before Yom Kippur. And, that it's "like in Bible times, even nerdier!". And, some examples of people's sins are posted on Twitter. It's completely anonymous - I made it all the way to the place where I had to type in my sin in 120 characters or less.
One user is quoted at ReligionNews.com as saying, "“At first I thought it was a comic kind of thing, and then I realized that even though some of the things seemed funny at first, they weren’t,” said a novelist in New Mexico. For instance, she said, people acknowledging how they tune out others.
It's a pretty whimsical website, and the executive director of the website says, “It’s one of the more colorful, tangible, wacky, wooly things in the Bible,” she said. “And no one seems to know it.”
Pardon me, but my take is that the whole process of making atonement for sin is a rather serious matter. And, while I understand what this website is trying to do, we have to recognize that confession, repentance, and the cleansing process that God takes us through is highly introspective, can be painful, and incredibly rewarding when we experience the freedom that only Jesus can bring.
Jesus said that He did not come to abolish the Law, but to fulfill it, and in Hebrews 9, we see how the concept of Yom Kippur is integrated into the New Covenant and how Jesus acted as High Priest, the sacrifice for sin, and even the scapegoat, upon whom the sins of the people were placed.
Hebrews 9 describes the process of atonement for the sins of the people and how Jesus came as the perfect High Priest who made a permanent sacrifice for our sins.(6b) the priests always went into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the services.7But into the second part the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people's sins committed in ignorance;
11But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation.12Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.13For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh,14how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
And, for the Christian, every day can be a day of atonement, as we come before God's throne, and in the Spirit, enter into the Holy of Holies, essentially, because no longer do we have to go to an individual to stand before God in our place. Jesus died in our place and entered into that most Holy place, and invites us to come to Him, confess our sin, and be made whole.
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