The goat shall bear
all their iniquities on itself to a remote area, and he shall let the goat go
free in the wilderness (Vayikra / Leviticus 16:22; ESV)
The most
solemn day of the Jewish calendar is Yom Kippur (English: The Day of
Atonement), which this year occurs from sundown on Friday, September 13 until
sunset the following day. One of the unique rituals of this day, when the
Temple was still standing, was for the Cohen HaGadol (English: the Chief
Priest) to take a live goat and "confess over it all the iniquities of the
people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins" (Vayikra /
Leviticus 16:21; ESV). Then a person especially appointed to the task took the
goat, referred to as the "scapegoat," and set it to wander in the
wilderness, thus symbolizing the removal of the nation's sins.
With the
destruction of the Temple almost two thousand years ago, this ritual, along
with so many other God-ordained rituals of those days, ceased. Over the next
while Judaism underwent a complete overhaul as new traditions were introduced
to replace the sacrificial system. As a result, powerful symbols of forgiveness
such as the scapegoat were lost.
Last year
for Yom Kippur, I wrote a TorahBytes message (http://www.torahbytes.org/73-53.htm)
where I suggested that forgiveness is one of the greatest gifts God gave to the
world through the Jewish people. Since then this topic has challenged me over
and over again. I have realized how slow I am to forgive. But you might be
thinking that the scapegoat ritual is about receiving forgiveness, not offering
it to others. What we may not realize, however, is that the two are intimately
connected.
One of the
strongest statements the Messiah ever made was "If you do not forgive
others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses"
(Matthew 6:15: ESV). Unforgiveness is a prison. Not so much for those against
whom we harbor bitterness, but for ourselves. There may be some people who delude
themselves into thinking that they have nothing of which to be forgiven, but
for those who know better, who are burdened by the guilt of the innumerable
wrongs they have committed, they will never know the wonderful relief of God's
forgiveness until they forgive those who have wronged them. Yeshua said so.
This is the
same Yeshua who made the Temple rituals, including the scapegoat, redundant, by
being the only true scapegoat. As the Hebrew prophet Isaiah foresaw over six
hundred years earlier,
Surely
he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he
was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us
peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned - every one - to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the
iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53 4-6; ESV).
Even though
we can't know God's forgiveness unless we forgive others, forgiveness still
begins with God. Yeshua's suffering and death accomplished once and for all
what the Yom Kippur scapegoat symbolized. He carried away our sins, thus
creating the conditions for our forgiveness. But unless we forgive others, we
cannot truly receive God's forgiveness.
Last year's
message included a link to a song which so effectively captures the Scriptures'
understanding of forgiveness. I encourage you to give it a listen, even if you
heard it before. This might be a new day of freedom for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment