Advent Week Two: Peace in Chaos
PEACE IN CHAOS: The Day of Atonement
For the second week of advent, we reflect on the Day of Atonement, a ceremony the Israelites were to partake of year after year. As the Lord says, “on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the Lord, you will be clean from all your sins.”
Blood is an important component of cleansing and sacrifice. The writer of the book of Hebrews says, “and almost all things are cleansed with blood, according to the Law, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness” (Heb. 9:22). On the day of atonement, the High Priest would make three sin offerings on behalf of himself and the people of Israel, besides the two rams he would also offer as a burnt offering. The first, a young bull, for his own atonement. The second and third, two male goats: one to sacrifice to the LORD, and the other, to be kept alive, presented before the LORD for the sins of the people, and sent away into the wilderness as a scapegoat to symbolically carry these sins away.
Moses writes in Leviticus 16, “he is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat’s head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness.”
The Bible does not mention laying the literal blood of the sacrificed goat on the scapegoat’s head, but I chose to show the blood, in a visual reminder of the sins laid upon the scapegoat’s head in this ancient ceremony. Both goats are representative of Christ and His sacrifice on our behalf, to bring peace between us and a holy God. He was killed as the offering for our sins, His blood was shed to make atonement, and He carried our sins away from us and the presence of God, as far as the east is from the west.
But Christ’s sacrifice was a better sacrifice than all the blood of bulls and lambs and goats combined, and now, we can find peace in the midst of chaos, for we have a way to be right with God. The author of Hebrews concludes in Hebrews 9:24-28,
“For Christ did not enter a holy place made by hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Holy Place year by year with blood that is not his own. Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been revealed to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And just as it is destined for people to die once, and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.”