Today at sundown marks the beginning of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement.  If you’re not familiar with the Jewish calendar and holidays, ten days ago was Rosh Hashanah (see my last Pulse), which began the ten Days of Awe, during which the people of God were to spend time in soul searching and repentance in order to prepare for this most holy day.

The best place to read in the Bible in order to understand Yom Kippur is Leviticus 16.  In that chapter, we find the high priest, Aaron, being instructed to enter the sanctuary with a bull and ram for a burnt offering and to put on the sacred linen tunic, sacred undergarments, a linen sash and linen turban (when you’ve got to wear sacred underwear, you know it’s a special occasion…).  He is then to take two male goats for a sin offering and a ram for another burnt offering.  One goat will be sacrificed as a sin offering for the people of Israel, but the other will be chosen as a scapegoat.  According to Leviticus 16:21-22, the high priest “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 desert in the care of a man appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place; and the man shall release it in the desert.” 

That’s one loaded goat.

So once a year, this goat will be release into the desert with all of the sins of God’s people on its head.  Often, according to the Hebrew writings, the goat would even be pushed off a cliff, to guarantee that the goat would not return to the camp with all of the people’s sins (there’s a horror/comedy movie in there somewhere).  There were also a couple of traditions associated with this occasion.  One is that often it was a Gentile who would lead the goat into the wilderness; after all, what Hebrew would want to be that close to the entire sinfulness of the Hebrew people?  Another tradition was that a red cord would be put around its head, to symbolize the sin of the people.  Part of the red cord was tied to the door of the Temple, and apparently when the goat met its demise, the red cord would miraculously turn white, and the High Priest would proclaim to the people that God had accepted their sacrifice and forgiven their sins.

And so, year after year, the Israelites enacted this ritual, sending their sins into the desert on the head of a goat.  Every year the priest would get up, put on his sacred underwear, sacrifice the necessary animals, and wait for the red cord to turn white so that the sins of the people might be forgiven. 

But get this – apparently something happened to this ritual forty years before the destruction of the Jewish Temple in AD 70.  The Talmud (the collection of rabbinic reflections on the Scriptures) in Tractate Yoma 39:b records what I mentioned earlier, that on Yom Kippur it was customary to tie some red wool to the temple gate, and that miraculously, after the goat died to take away or atone for sin, the red wool always turned white as a sign to the people that they had been forgiven.  But during the forty years before the destruction of the temple and the altar in 70 AD, the red wool tied to the temple gate remained red – it never turned white again! In the Talumd, the rabbis concluded that God was saying, “I will not forgive, I will not forgive.”

Now think about those dates. We know the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD, so 40 years before that would be about the year 30 AD.  Can anyone think of something significant that happened about the year 30 AD?

Around the year 30 AD, a man named Jesus Christ was crucified on a cross.  Was this event just a tragic death of a great man, or was there something more going on that the Day of Atonement and the story of the red and white cord can shed light on?  Listen to what the writer of Hebrews has to say about it:

The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming– not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins… we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. (Hebrews 10:1-4; 10-12)

If the writer of Hebrews is correct, when Jesus died on the cross, it was more than just a tragic death of a great man.  It was a once for all reenactment of the Day of Atonement.  The great high priest Jesus has offered for all time one sacrifice for sins – Himself – and has sat down at the right hand of God, NEVER TO PERFORM THE SACRIFICE AGAIN!  As central as the Day of Atonement was to the people of God, after 30 AD it became unnecessary thanks to the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

The red cord no longer turns white.  The goat can no longer take away the sins of the people.  The ultimate sacrifice has been offered, and the high priest has sat down. 

What does this mean?  It means that because of Jesus, those who put their faith in Him have their sins forgiven once for all.  All you’ve ever done, are doing now, and will ever do is covered by the blood of Jesus Christ.  As verse 10 says, “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”  We still confess and repent in order to be right with God, but our sin does not invalidate our standing before God – we have been made holy, and the high priest has SAT DOWN.  Our identity is now secure – we are forgiven, holy, beloved children of God.  There is no need for repetitive rituals that have no power to forgive sins.  We have been forgiven once and for all time.

Praise God for His mercy towards us, that Jesus Christ was sacrificed to take away the sins of the world, so that we might have eternal life and become a new creation in Him.

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