THE SCAPEGOAT REBOOT—Leviticus 16
Your computer or phone is slow, or acting strangely. Is it a virus, or malware? Do you have a poor connection? What do you do? REBOOT. If that doesn’t work, recover or update, and then reboot.
(Note to preacher: Scott Adams has a book on the comic strip, Dilbert: “Try Rebooting Yourself.” The cover is pictured online. You might ask, “Can you reboot yourself?”)
If we use that as an analogy, the malware in us is SIN. It builds up like a toxin, in individuals and families and communities—even Christian communities. It poisons relationships, disrupts communication, destroys love, and causes chaos. It is like cancer; it eats away at the joy and peace and righteousness that should be present. Most seriously, it interrupts our life-giving connection with God, the Source of life.
How do we deal with sin? We can try to ignore it, but that doesn’t make it go away. We can deny or excuse it, compounding the sin, by lying, blaming others, or lowering expectations. We can try to live with it, until the guilt and shame become so overwhelming that they can’t be ignored any longer.
When sin is present, we need to reboot. We need to clear out the sin and guilt, and renew our connection with God, who gives us life.
The Bible has a word for rebooting: ATONEMENT. The root of the English word provides its meaning: at-one-ment. Literally in Hebrew, it means “to cover,” and it is connected to the cover of the Ark of the Covenant, where blood was sprinkled in God’s most holy place, to atone for sin.
Atonement has both aspects of a reboot: the malware is removed, and the connection is restored. The connection is personal, however, for atonement is a word of relationship. An offense must be dealt with, so that the relationship can be restored.
(Note to preacher: Perhaps you can find a contemporary illustration or quote of someone talking about the need to make atonement. I used Sean Penn on Larry King Live, which is too old.)
The Day of Atonement, which is Hebrew is Yom Kippur, was a yearly reboot. It involved animals and sacrifices, which were not for God’s benefit; God did not need sacrifices, incense, or a bloody mess! It was God’s provision for people whose sin had built up over a year’s time. It gave them a fresh start.
Read Leviticus 16:2-19.
When the Israelites camped in the wilderness of Sinai, God lived among them, with the visible focus of his presence being the tabernacle. The tabernacle was a holy space, and the most holy place in the tabernacle was behind a curtain, the Most Holy Place, or Holy of Holies. There God appeared in a cloud, above the Ark of the Covenant, which contained The Ten Commandments and Moses’ rod that budded.
Since God is holy, set apart from sin, it is dangerous for a sinner to come into the presence of God. The Prophet Isaiah had a vision of God, and he heard the words, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.” His immediate response was, "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." (Isaiah 6:5)
Yet God provided a way, once each year, for the high priest to enter the Most Holy Place on behalf of God’s people. The high priest must bathe, and be dressed in the holy garments God provides. He must sacrifice a bull for his own sins. The Most Holy Place must be filled with the smoke of holy incense, so that the high priest will not see the fullness of God’s glory. Then he goes in, and sprinkles blood from the bull before the “throne” of God.
With the way opened, and the sins of the high priest atoned for, the high priest can now make atonement for all of the people. The high priest takes two goats; goat #1 will be killed, and goat #2 will be the scapegoat.
Goat #1 is slaughtered, as a sin offering. People brought animals as sin offerings every day, but this sin offering is different; it is an offering to atone for the sins of ALL the people. The high priest goes into the Most Holy Place, and sprinkles the blood of the goat on the atonement cover, to “make atonement for the Most Holy Place, because of the rebellion of the Israelites.” Then he comes out and sprinkles blood on the altar where daily sacrifices are made, to “make atonement for it.” What is going on? The connection points—the tabernacle, the Ark and the altar—are cleansed and restored, rebooted for another year. Read 16:32-33.
Do we have to reboot our connection to God every year? Probably more often than that! Yet we don’t need to kill a goat, to atone for our sins and “fix” the way to a relationship with God. Jesus took care of that, once and for all. Colossians 2:17 says, “[OT religious festivals] are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.
The blood of the goat in the Old Testament did not really atone for sin; it pointed to the blood of Jesus, who died to atone for the sins of all people, for all time.
Hebrews 9:11-14 “When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!”
Hebrews 10:19-22 “Therefore, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”
We don’t need a goat to restore a broken connection with God. Jesus took care of that, forever.
Yet sometimes, we need to reboot OURSELVES. There is no problem on God’s side, for 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” The problem is that we can’t get past our sins. We can’t shake the painful memories, the feelings of guilt and shame, or the grip of sin in our weaker moments. Our sins may be forgiven, but they are not gone.
That brings us to goat #2. Remember that one? Read Leviticus 16:5, 19-28.
Imagine the drama as the high priest lays both hands on the innocent scapegoat. He confesses over the goat “all the wickedness and rebellion of Israelites—ALL their sins.” As he does so, thousands of Israelites confess their own sins, releasing an immense weight of guilt and shame onto the head of this poor, innocent goat. Then, a man appointed for the task takes the goat away to a solitary place, releasing it into the desert, never to return. The picture is clear, as Psalm 103:12 says, “As far as the east is from the west, so far has God removed our transgressions from us.”
I wonder: Did the goat ever find its way back? It would be like a dark horror movie: The killer disposes of the dead body in the water, but it surfaces again! The movie taps into our worst fears: We confront our guilt, confess our sins, and claim forgiveness…but in our weaker moments, or the darkness of night, the guilt comes back to haunt us.
There is a Hebrew tradition that the goat was thrown off a cliff, guaranteeing that he would not come back to haunt people, who thought they had gotten rid of their sins. Yet what should haunt people is that the goat was not really able to eliminate sin; it was only a goat! Even today, the word “scapegoat” carries a meaning of unfairness or delusion, as blame is shifted from the guilty one to the one who did nothing wrong. Are those who believe in forgiveness and grace deceiving themselves, in thinking that a goat can carry their guilt away?
No goat can remove sin and guilt; only God can do that. The Son of God became a man, and lived without sin, to make atonement for our sins, and reboot our relationship with God. The final task of his life on earth was to take upon himself the sins of all who would accept him as God’s provision for atonement.
So on the Friday we call Good, Jesus was led out of the holy city, away from the temple and the Most Holy Place, to a desolate place “outside the camp,” called Golgotha. There, the infinitely valuable, unblemished scapegoat removed forever the sins of the world. As Isaiah 53:4-6 says, “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows…he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed…the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
What two goats could not do, the Son of God was able to do. He took upon himself the sin and guilt we could not remove. He shed his blood to restore us to fellowship with our holy God, and he buried our sin and guilt in a tomb of forgetfulness. As the author of Hebrews says, only “the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, [could] cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!”
We no longer need the goats! We don’t need goat #1, for the blood of the one and only Son of God is sufficient to cover all of our sins—past, present, and future. We no longer need goat #2, for our guilt is permanently removed, never to return.
DO WE STILL NEED TO REBOOT? Maybe we do, and we will not have to wait for the Day of Atonement to do it! As Hebrews says, “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”
If you are carrying a burden of sin, a burden of guilt and shame, or a burden of dark memories that oppress you and drag you down, the goats are a picture of a much deeper reality: In Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven, and your guilt is gone, forever. Today, you can lay your sin and guilt on the spotless Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.
What burdens are you carrying today? As we bow our heads in prayer, I invite you to extend your hands, as the high priest did when he laid the burden of the sins of the people on the goat. As you pray, you can lay on Jesus all of your sins, all of your guilt, all of your shame, all of your fear of your sin being discovered. Jesus takes that burden from you, and he sheds his blood on the cross, outside the city. Your burden is gone, your sins are atoned for, and your relationship with God is restored.
As we pray, we can use the words of an old hymn by Horatius Bonar:
I lay my sins on Jesus, the spotless Lamb of God;
He bears them all, and frees us from the accursed load.
I lay my guilt on Jesus, to wash my crimson stains
White in his blood most precious, ‘til not a spot remains.
(Continue in silent prayer…)
(Note to preacher: As an alternate response, you could invite your hearers to write down some of their sins and burdens, and put them on a cross. Or you might have another idea.)
…AMEN. The goat is gone!—and he’s never coming back! Thank you, Jesus!
