Day of Atonement

Today was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  

In the Jewish tradition it is the last of the high holy days, or the “Ten Days of Return,” that began with Trumpets.  It is the second of the three fall feasts, and on God’s calendar, it is the sixth of His seven appointed times.  

The Hebrew word for “atonement,” kippur, shares an origin with kaphar, “to cover over, pacify, or make propitiation,” and with kopher, “the price of a life.”   

The price of a life.  Or, the cost required to buy it and to keep it free from slavery.  To cover it. 

So what is the price of a life, the cost of freedom?

The Day of Atonement was the only feast day for which God commanded self-denial, or fasting.  Anyone who did not deny themselves on this day was to be cut off from his people.  The nation gathered and fasted, and waited for the high priest to go before God on their behalf. 

As the sacrificial goats and rams bleated, they waited.  As the young bull lowed, they waited.  As the altar fire burned in the outer court, they waited.  For minutes that felt like hours, they waited.  Until at last, the high priest emerged alive, and it was finished.  Another year bought and paid for, a year’s worth of sins completely removed and forgotten.  

On this sobering day, the high priest held a fearful job.  First, he bathed. Then, he dressed in holy linen garments.  He slaughtered and sacrificed a young bull to atone for himself and for his household.  As that fire burned down, he filled a firepan with the altar’s fiery coals and took it, along with two handfuls of finely ground fragrant incense, into the tent of meeting.  Inside, as his eyes adjusted, various golden objects glimmered in the dim light.  But this time, none of them were his focus.  Cautiously, he made his way across the room.  Through the holy place where the priests usually ministered to the Lord.  Past the golden lampstand and the table of showbread.  Onward, to the back of the room, to that heavy veil that rose, floor-to-ceiling, before him.  As he neared it, his legs grew weak.  Only he, the high priest, would ever enter.  And only on this day, one day a year, the Day of Atonement. 

On the other side of its thick, purple weave was God.  Appearing as a cloud above the mercy seat, God enveloped the space between the cherubim atop the golden ark of the covenant.

Beyond the veil, with hands shaking, the high priest would take the incense and add it to the holy fire, so that its smoke would rise up and cover the mercy seat.  Only then, as the cloud of God’s presence was enrobed by the cloud of His people’s prayers, might the high priest breath a little easier; failure to complete this step would have meant certain death.  Standing there, the high priest would have smelled that pleasing aroma, the unique and holy blend of incense ordered by God and disallowed anywhere else– a terrifyingly special moment.  Then, the high priest would dip his fingers into the bull’s blood and sprinkle it on the east side of the mercy seat, and on the front seven times.

Returning to the entrance of the tent, the high priest would then cast lots for the two male goats: one for the Lord, and the other for the scapegoat.  The one chosen as a sacrifice to the Lord would be slaughtered for the sins of the people, its blood brought inside the veil as was the bull.  But the one chosen as a scapegoat would not be slaughtered.  Rather, on its head the high priest would lay both his hands— hands that had been washed, then filled with incense, and then dipped in blood— and confess all of Israel’s wrongdoings and rebellion, all of their sin.  The scapegoat was then released into a desolate land, to take with it the sin of the people, never to return.  

Did the Israelites watch the scapegoat diminish into the wilderness, and wonder whether it was enough?  Whether the blood of a ram and the exile of a scapegoat really made up for a year’s worth of rebellion for an entire nation?  

It didn’t matter what they thought. It only mattered what God thought, and He accepted it.

For Christians under the new covenant, the New Testament sheds light on this traditional festival to the Lord. We know from the book of Hebrews, that the blood of bulls and goats was not enough. It could not take away sins.  All it could do was remind people of their sins.  Remind them of their need for a savior.  Remind them of the price of a life.  

Something Adam and Eve knew all too well.  And Cain.  And Abraham, and his son Isaac.  And every other one God allowed to taste the deep need that is left by sin, and the longing in our soul for the One who can fill it.  The One whose death tore the temple veil in two.   The One who was both the blood sacrifice, and the High Priest who entered the holy of holies to offer it: 

“He entered the most holy place once and for all, not by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption…For the Messiah did not enter a sanctuary made with hands (only a model of the true one), but into heaven itself, so that He might now appear in the presence of God for us.  He did not do this to offer Himself many times, as the high priest enters the sanctuary yearly with the blood of another… But now He has appeared one time, at the end of the ages, for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of Himself…” (Hebrews 9:7-8, 11-12,24-26)

Therefore, brothers, since we have boldness to enter the sanctuary through the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way He has opened for us through the curtain (that is, His flesh), and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water.  Let us hold on to the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.” (Hebrews 10:1-4, 10-12, 19-23). 

It’s not about inheritance. Or our good works. Or keeping the law. Or out-giving or out-running our sin. It’s not about doing more to get farther, or about being extra good so that our names are guaranteed in the book of life. Rather it’s about fully embracing– with our minds and with our hearts– that we have needs we can’t meet, holes we can’t fill, and sin we can’t fix. That we can’t slaughter enough to ever be worthy.

It was never about what we could do. Or who we were. Or what we offered. It was always about what He could do. Who He was. And what He offered.

Which was everything.