Once a year. One day. One man. One room. This is the rhythm of the most sacred moment in Israel’s calendar Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Everything in Leviticus has been building toward this. All the daily offerings, the weekly Sabbaths, the monthly new moons they were maintenance. This is the annual deep clean. The day the whole nation’s sin is dealt with at the root.
Once a year. One day. One man. One room. This is the rhythm of the most sacred moment in Israel’s calendar Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Everything in Leviticus has been building toward this. All the daily offerings, the weekly Sabbaths, the monthly new moons they were maintenance. This is the annual deep clean. The day the whole nation’s sin is dealt with at the root.
And the weight of what Aaron must do on this day is almost unbearable. He cannot simply walk in. He must bathe in water, dress in simple linen not the ornate priestly garments but plain white linen, the colour of purity, nothing decorative, nothing impressive. He must offer a bull for his own sin before he can offer anything for the people. Even the high priest cannot approach the presence of God on his own merits. He needs blood too.
No one enters the Most Holy Place on their own righteousness. Not the high priest. Not Moses. Not the most faithful servant God has ever had. The only one who walked into the holy place of heaven without blood was the One whose blood He was bringing for the rest of us. Everyone else goes in covered.
Two goats are brought. Lots are cast. One goat is designated for the Lord it will be sacrificed. One goat is designated for Azazel it will be sent away into the wilderness. They are the two sides of atonement: the penalty paid and the sin removed.
Aaron kills the first goat. He takes the blood inside the veil, behind the curtain, into the Most Holy Place where no one goes except this man on this day. He dips his finger in the blood and sprinkles it on the atonement cover and before the atonement cover seven times. He comes back out. He atones for the Holy Place itself, for the Tabernacle, for the altar because the holiness of God’s dwelling has been contaminated by the sin of the people who live near it.
— Even the building needed atonement. The presence of sinful people in proximity to holy space leaves a residue that requires cleansing. This is how serious sin is. This is how holy God is.
And then the second goat. Aaron lays both hands on the head of the live goat. Not one hand, the gesture of offering both hands, the gesture of full transference. He confesses over it all the iniquities of the Israelites, all their transgressions, all their sins. He puts them on the goat’s head. And the goat is sent into the wilderness by the hand of someone appointed for the task it carries all the sin far away, into an uninhabited land.
“The goat will carry all their iniquities
to a remote place;”
— Leviticus 16:22
Raising altars of prayer, worship and the Word across the nations.
