Eastertide #21: Sunday 4 of 7—almost as long as a Sunday sermon.

The scapegoat shall make atonement

by sending it alive into the wilderness.

(Leviticus 16:10)

If I’ve got it right; or, reasonably right; or, close to right… there are three animals sacrificed on the annual Day of Atonement:  A bull to make atonement first for the High Priest and then the Sanctuary; and two goats to make atonement for the people; one goat is sacrificed, while the other lives as a scapegoat to carry away the offenses and hurts of the community far away into the wilderness.

With precise instruction and properly clothed with his PPE, the High Priest enters the sanctuary’s most holy place where dwells the Mercy Seat atop the Ark of the Covenant. He then sprinkles the Mercy Seat with the blood of the bull. In a year’s time contaminates reach even there. The decontamination assures that mercy will continue to flow from the innermost Mercy Seat outward through the whole sanctuary and into the outermost community.

After the sanctuary is decontaminated; those two goats are sacrificed for the decontamination of the people. One on the altar, and the other will live as a sacrificial scapegoat banished into the wilderness bearing away the accumulated sins of the community. After all that—that Day of Atonement, mercy flows from God above, and with offences against one another carried by the scaptegoat far away, peace is restored to the community below. “Glory to God in the highest,” as the Angels sang at His birth, “and peace on earth.”

What does it mean for us that on Calvary, God is “making peace through the blood of Christ shed on the cross” (Col 1:20). Does blood and cross make any sense to us without some knowledge of the Tabernacle and what happened there, especially on that Day of Atonement?

Calvary is for us that most holy place from which mercy flows to all people in all places. But what about that living sacrifice—that scapegoat? I’m told wherever we find human society, there is a need for a scapegoat. Things go along alright for a while; but eventually things always go foul—like covid-19. Who is to blame? Society will not be satisfied until it marks out a scapegoat who bears the blame. Once we pile society’s guilt on the scapegoat, things settled down until the next threat to society comes along; and then the community will dig up another scapegoat to cast out of the community. And so the cycle goes, until Jesus came. Jesus puts an end to our relentless scapegoating. He bears the blame upon himself and carries it away. Jesus frees us from scapegoating. Peace and mercy flow: “Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Jesus our Lord” (1Tm 1:2).