| Passion Sunday, 2001
Hebrews 9:11-15 The Day of Atonement
The Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement, of recent centuries is a somber event. Strict fasting is required from sundown of the one day until the first stars appear on the next day. No food or water of any kind may be tasted. One is not allowed to bath or shave or clean. Shoes are not to be worn unless there is a fear of scorpions. It is truly a day of affliction. Traditions change over time, and the modern Yom Kippur is different from the New Testament era in important ways. Following the lead of our epistle lesson, we will examine the Day of Atonement ceremony. A review of it serves as a good background to highlight the grace and glory of the Cross. Some of the particulars we find in the Old Testament Scriptures, other parts are traditions that have been added later on. [Most of the ceremonial information can be found in Alfred Edersheim's classic, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services as they Were at the Time of Christ .] How was the feast celebrated in the time of Christ?
Seven days before the Day of Atonement the people escorted the high priest in a procession from his own house on Mount Zion to the Temple. There he would stay until the festival concluded. On the third and seventh day of the week he would be sprinkled with ashes of the red heifer in case he had accidentally been defiled by a dead body. The author to the Hebrews alludes to this red heifer tradition in our epistle reading. Let us read Hebrews 9:11-15:
But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.
The bulls and goats and the ashes of the red heifer are given in the context of the Day of atonement. The atoning power of these are contrasted to the atoning power of the blood of Christ. The Old Covenant sacrifices could restore communion to God in a formal and external fashion, they could purify the flesh, but they could not deal with the conscience. In other words the levitical system achieved only superficial and temporary cleansing. It could not penetrate to the heart of man's need, nor could it bring about a permanent change. Only the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ could do this.
What else took place on the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur as it is called in Hebrew? The day before Yom Kippur some of the elders of the Sanhedrin were appointed to instruct the high priest on what he was about to do, for he must not commit any mistake. The centrality of the high priest was amazing. He had several helpers, but basically he did everything. On the eve of Yom Kippur the high priest was to keep a vigil. He began his watch by eating only a scanty meal. All night long he preached sermons or listened to sermons from Holy Scriptures so that he would not fall asleep. That is an interesting concept. Sermons do the opposite to some people.
At any rate, the high priest was to stay awake all the way through the night. With the first light of dawn the people would begin arriving in the temple to witness the morning sacrifice. Normally other priests would perform the morning and evening duties, but not on the day of Atonement. Today the high priest would do it himself. In preparation for the morning service the high priest would dress in his golden vestments, which set him aside in symbolic fashion as the bridegroom of the Church. Before the high priest put on his golden vestments he would bath. Altogether he changed his vestments and washed his whole body five times on that day, and his hands and feet ten times. After vesting in the ornate gold, he washed his hands and feet and carried out the morning sacrifice.
The morning service finished, the high priest washed his hands and feet again, took off his golden vestments, bathed his entire body, and put on some simple white garments. These white vestments the high priest wore only on the Day of Atonement. The white signified the perfect purity of Jesus, the purity that the people longed for on that day. The first animal to get involved was the bullock, or young bull. The assistants led the bullock to the steps of the Holy Place facing west towards the Holy of Holies. The high priest came to confront both the bullock and worshippers. He then laid both his hands upon the head of the bullock and made a confession for him and his family, saying: "Ah, Jehovah! I have committed iniquity; I have transgressed; I have sinned - I and my house. Oh, then, Jehovah, I entreat thee cover over (that word for cover over is Kippur, or atone) the iniquities, the transgressions, and the sins which I have committed, transgressed, and sinned before Thee, I and my house - even as it is written in the law of Moses, Thy servant: "For, on that day will He cover over (Kippur) for you to make you clean; from all your transgressions before Jehovah ye shall be cleansed.'" In this confession the high priest had uttered the LORD's name three times. Every time the name of Jehovah was pronounced there would be a pause. The priests would bow to the ground while the multitudes of people sang a benediction accompanied by brass instruments. The congregation would sing out, "Blessed be the Name; the glory of His kingdom is for ever and ever."
After the confession the high priest left the bullock and came out among the great congregation where two identical goats stood facing the Holy of Holies The high priest placed himself between the two goats. Then an assistant priest held out to him a golden urn with two lots inside. The priest reached both of his hands inside the urn and drew out the two lots. One lot indicated the scapegoat, the other lot decided the goat to be slain. The lot in his left hand he put on the head of the goat on the left; the lot in his right hand he put on the head of the goat on the right. The kid destined to be the scapegoat was marked by tying a red cloth around his horn. The sacrificial goat had a red cloth tied around his neck. The goat that was to be sent forth was now turned around towards the people, and stood facing them, waiting, as it were, till their sins should be laid on him, and he would carry them forth into the uninhabited desert.
Certainly, this scene was a type of Christ. You will remember that Pontius Pilate brought Jesus out to stand before the people. John 19:4-6 relates what happened:
Pilate then went out and said to them, 'Behold, I am bringing Him out to you, that you may know that I find no fault in Him.'" Then Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. And Pilate said to them, "Behold the Man!" Therefore, when the chief priests and officers saw Him, they cried out, saying, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" Pilate said to them, "You take Him and crucify Him, for I find no fault in Him."
And they did. They took Him out of the city to Golgotha and nailed Him to a tree. There He shed His blood and died. The scapegoat during Yom Kippur was no doubt a foreshadowing of our LORD's passion. So the high priest left the innocent scapegoat facing the people and returned to the bullock. He then killed the bullock, caught his blood in a vessel, and gave it to an attendant to stir with a spoon so it would not coagulate. While the acolyte was stirring, the high priest filled the censer he was holding with burning coals, and in the other hand he filled up his dish with incense. Every eye was strained towards the sanctuary as, slowly bearing the censer and the incense, the figure of the white-robed high priest was seen to disappear within the Holy Place. After that nothing further could be seen of his movements. As the curtain shut behind him, the high priest stood alone in the awful gloom of the Holiest. That cubicle was somehow a microcosm of heaven. The only light was the Shekinah glory cloud, and if that was not present, merely the red glow of the coals from the censer.
In the original Temple of Solomon the Holy of Holies contained the ark of the covenant, and the two cherubim. But in the Temple of Herod there was nothing but a large stone, called the "foundation stone." He set the censer down on the stone and poured plenty of incense on the coals, and waited for a cloud to form. While the smoke filled the place, he prayed, pleading for God's protection and blessing on Israel. The people worshipped outside in silence. At last the congregation saw the high priest emerge from the veil. Rapidly he took from the attendant the blood of the bullock which he had been faithfully stirring, and disappeared behind the veil a second time.
With the blood of the bullock the high priest dipped his finger in the bowl and started sprinkling it up and around the Holy Place. He was very careful not to get a drop on his white linen vestment. Then he came out of the Holiest, put down his bowl of bullock blood, and went over to the sacrificial goat. He killed that goat and entered the Most Holy Place for the third time, and sprinkled just like he had already done with the bullock's blood. Then he came out and mixed the two jugs of blood together. This red brew he first sprinkled over the veil of the Holy Place, next over the altar of burnt offering, and then over the horns of the altar of incense.
Why all the bloody aspersions? In order to cleanse the entire Temple from defilement the priests and worshippers had created during the year. Without these blood sprinklings it would have been impossible for priests and people to offer sacrifices in the sanctuary. The temple would have been defiled. Forgiveness of sins and fellowship with God would not have been available. It was the scapegoat's turn next. The whole time the bullock and goat were being slain and having their blood sprinkled, the scapegoat stood quietly facing the people with a red flag tied around his horn. Again the high priest put his hands on the head of the goat and confessed the sin of the people. After he was done with the confession he raised his arms and gave a short declaration of absolution: "Ye shall be cleansed."
Then a strange scene occurred. The priests led the sin burdened goat out of the temple, through Solomon's Porch, over the Mount of Olives and into the wilderness. The distance between Jerusalem and the beginning of the wilderness was ten miles. The Jews divided the distance into ten intervals or stations. At each station someone was assigned to lead the scapegoat one tenth of the way. In this manner, by ten different people, the goat was lead ten miles to a rocky cliff in the desert. At the very brink of the precipice the last assigned man untied the red flag from the goat's horn and tied the flag to a projecting rock nearby. Then, leading the animal backwards, he pushed it over the cliff to its death below.
This cruel shoving over a precipice was undoubtedly an innovation that violated the law. The Mosaic law simply ordered that the goat be let go (Lev. 16:26). Here was a case of the Rabbis getting carried away. At any rate, the arrival of the goat in the wilderness and its death was communicated back to the temple worshippers in less than a minute. How did they do this without cell phones? They telegraphed each other along the ten stations with flags. Those people who had remained in the temple received the word and rejoiced in their hearts. During the time that the scapegoat was being led out into the desert, the high priest cut up the goat and bullock that had been slaughtered in the temple. The carcasses were given to an attendant to take outside and burn. Now was moment for the high priest to enter the Holy of Holies for the fourth and last time that day. He entered in order to remove the censer and incense dish that he had left there earlier. On coming out this last time, he took off his linen garments, which were never to be used again. Then he was escorted by the people in a recessional to his own house that he had left seven days before. The people sensed a certain joy in their freedom from sin.
In order to express that joy, the maidens of Jerusalem made their way into the vineyards close to the city where they danced and sang in white dresses. The evening ended with an ebullient banquet.
What do we learn from the Day of Atonement rituals? We learn that atonement is critical. It means reconciliation between God and man. Without atonement we stand condemned in our sins, destined for eternal punishment in Hell. Sin separates us from a holy God, and therefore we desperately need at-one-ment or atonement.
Today sin is taken so lightly, so many excuses are made that few want to come to grips with it. They block out true guilt and pretend their condition is fine. They suppress the knowledge of this truth in unrighteousness. But the wages of sin is death. Sin is a capital offense against God. Atonement is therefore an inescapable concept. If man will not seek his atonement in the cross of Christ, he will seek it in masochism, sadism, and suicide. The author of Hebrews is at pains to point out that the whole sacrificial system of the Old Testament, including Yom Kippur is merely educative: its fulfillment comes through the Son of God. Christ is the perfect and permanent scapegoat who takes away the sins of the world. The live goat that was supposed to be let go every year in the wilderness was a remover of sin, and the goat and bullock slaughtered in the temple were supposed to cover sin and guilt, but those sins were never really blotted out or obliterated. Only Jesus' work on the Cross could do that. Though the Yom Kippur ceremony is rich and mysterious, we would have to agree with Calvin, who wrote, "What could be more vain and frivolous than for men to offer the fetid stench arising from the fat of cattle, in order to reconcile themselves to God? Or to resort to aspersions of water or of blood, to cleanse themselves from pollution? In short, the whole legal worship, if it be considered in itself, and contain no shadows and figures of [Christ], will appear perfectly ridiculous"
On this passion Sunday, let us take to heart Christ's perfect sacrifice. His death on the Cross was the definitive blood shedding, which the Day of Atonement foreshadowed. He entered the Holy of Holies once for all, which means He entered Heaven upon His Ascension. Hebrews says, "But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come," and "entered the Most Holy Place once for all" Why did He enter the Holy of Holies? Hebrews 9:26 tells us: "to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."
If you trust in Jesus, it is because God has graciously granted you the merits of His Son's death on the Cross. His blood completely blots out your sin, and covers your guilt. You have the forgiveness and fellowship of God the Father. You enjoy Christian grace, joy, and boldness in Jesus Christ. Come now to Christ's meal. Our Lord the King invites you to his throne room. In the elements He freely offers you His presence and transforming power. Come with thankful hearts.
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