The Feast of Yom Kippur (Atonement)

(Based on Rev. Kevin Parviz’s 2000 Lenten Series, published by Concordia Pulpit Resources)
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Leviticus 16:29 “This shall be a permanent statute for you: in the seventh
month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall humble your souls and
not do any work, whether the native, or the alien who sojourns among
you; 30 for it is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to
cleanse you; you will be clean from all your sins before the Lord. 31 It is
to be a sabbath of solemn rest for you, that you may humble your souls; it
is a permanent statute. 32 So the priest who is anointed and ordained to
serve as priest in his father’s place shall make atonement: he shall thus
put on the linen garments, the holy garments, 33 and make atonement for
the holy sanctuary, and he shall make atonement for the tent of meeting
and for the altar. He shall also make atonement for the priests and for all
the people of the assembly. 34 Now you shall have this as a permanent
statute, to make atonement for the sons of Israel for all their sins once
every year.’ And just as the Lord had commanded Moses, so he did.”
Last week’s Old Testament reading and sermon began with this command
from God to Moses. Leviticus 23:24 “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘In the
seventh month on the first of the month you shall have a rest, a reminder by
blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. 25 You shall not do any laborious
work, but you shall present an offering by fire to the Lord.’”
Last week we learned that God commanded the Israelites to observe certain
traditions/festivals/feasts and that these traditions and feasts were instituted by
God for specific theological reasons. They were to serve as a reminder of who they
were, who God is, and what God is doing in their midst. They connected the
people to what God had done in the past and they foreshadowed and connected the
people to the future person and work of the Promised Messiah.
The Feast of Trumpets was an annual New Years celebration rooted in the
worship of the Lord God. Every year on New Year’s the children of God were to
gather at the Tabernacle or Temple and hear the story of creation, the fall, the
covenant, the story of Abraham and Isaac, the test of faith, and more. The Feast of
Trumpets was a call to repentance, to confession and trust. The feast lasted 10
days and came to be called the “Days of Awe.”
Tonight we pick up where the Feat of Trumpets left off . . . literally.
Leviticus 16:29 “This shall be a permanent statute for you: in the seventh
month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall humble your souls and not do
any work, whether the native, or the alien who sojourns among you; 30 for it is
on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you; you will be
clean from all your sins before the Lord. 31 It is to be a sabbath of solemn rest
for you, that you may humble your souls; it is a permanent statute.”
The Feast of Trumpets is followed immediately by the Feast of Yom
Kippur, “The Day of Atonement.” In that rather lengthy Old Testament lesson you
heard the instructions God gave Moses regarding the whys, wherefores, who, and
hows of the atoning sacrifices that were to be offered by the people at the start of
each new year.
I once heard an atheist say that the God of the Jewish and the God of the
Christians is a blood thirsty God. He cited the Old Testament sacrificial system as
proof for the former and the claim God crucified His only Son as evidence for the
second.
It was a shocking thing to say, yet he had a point. While it is wrong to
characterize the Lord God, Yahweh Elohim, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
as “blood thirsty,” we cannot deny that the wages of sin is death and to be more
specific about it, death by sacrifice.
Leviticus 17:11, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given
it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by
reason of the life that makes atonement.”
The covenants of the Old and New Testaments are bloody covenants. The
word “atonement” means a blood payment for sin. The cost of sin is death.
Therefore on “The Day of Atonement” the blood of bulls, rams, goats, and sheep
served as substitutes for us. Their blood was shed in our stead. Adam and Eve
sinned. Discovered their nakedness and shame and God killed an animal in order
to cover them on account of their sin.
Hebrews 9:21 “And in the same way he [the high priest] sprinkled both
the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with the blood. 22 And
according to the Law, one may almost say, all things are cleansed with blood,
and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
It is here, in Leviticus 16, that God established the Old Testament version of
the means of grace. Just as we are baptized and we partake of the Lord’s body and
blood in the Lord’s Supper for the remission of sins, the Israelites were
commanded to offer blood sacrifices for the remission of their sins.
Just in case you got a little lost in the details of the long Old Testament
reading for this evening here is a summary of what God commanded to be done on
the Day of Atonement.
The high priest begins by taking a young bull and a young ram. There is
nothing holy about the high priest. He is a sinner just like all the rest. Just as there
is nothing holy about the person of the pastors, ministers, priests, fathers, or
bishops you have ever known. We are all sinners and those of us who have been
ordained into the holy office are among the most grievous. So before the high
priest was to offer the sacrifices to atone for the sins of the children of God, his
sins were to be atoned for. Thus the bull is sacrificed to atone for the sins of the
high priest and his household.
Once he has dealt with his own sins and the sins of his household, he takes
two goats and presents them before the Lord. One goat will be sacrificed on the
spot. The goat will take the place of every single Israelite and its blood will be
drained, its life taken and its blood and remains used for the purpose of purifying
the people.
The other goat becomes the scapegoat. While this goat will live a bit longer,
it will meet the same fate as the other, only in a more ruthless way. The priest will
take that goat out to the people. He will place his hands on it and transfer the sins
of the people to the goat. Then he and the people will drive the goat outside the
camp, in time the walls of Jerusalem into the wilderness be torn apart by wild
animals– meat for prey.
Now the blood of the bull and the goat is sprinkled on the mercy seat of the
ark of the covenant. The mercy seat was the top of the ark, the gold chest
containing the covenant. The cover of the chest had images of a cherubim on end.
The blood was also was sprinkled on the horns of the altar. In other words, the
place upon which the high priest, the ark of the covenant, and the altar were made
holy, that is into a sanctuary where God comes to His people to forgive their sins.
After all of this has been done, the high priest takes a ram, a male sheep and
sacrifices it. This ram is the sacrifice that makes the atonement complete. This is
the one that atones for the sins of the whole people.
God’s Word of Promise was joined to this blood letting life taking
ritual/tradition, which came to be called the Feast of Yom Kippur, the Day and
Feast of Atonement. And how did this bloody ritual become a feast and
celebration.
It became a feast and celebration in the same way Good Friday became the
Feast of the Resurrection. Having been forgiven their sins and made clean in the
blood of the lamb, the next five days were set aside for a celebration. Sins had
been forgiven. God has proven true to His Word. They people were cleansed for
another year. God and sinner were reconciled and it was all God’s doing.
But then, well you know what happened. The whole thing got turned
around. Sinful human nature and works-righteousness took over. The high priest
did what he did because he and they thought by doing so they were doing a good
work, they were offering something that would appease God’s anger and please
Him. They took the credit and wanted it credited to them as righteousness. It too
became mitzot, a good deed.
Isaiah 1:11 “What are your multiplied sacrifices to Me?” Says the Lord.
“I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams And the fat of fed cattle; And I
take no pleasure in the blood of bulls, lambs or goats.”
Malachi 1:10-11 “Oh that there were one among you who would shut the
gates, that you might not uselessly kindle fire on My altar! I am not pleased with
you,” says the Lord of hosts, “nor will I accept an offering from you.”
Thus God said through the prophet Jeremiah, (31:31-32) “‘Behold, days are
coming,” declares the Lord, ‘when I will make a new covenant with the house of
Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with
their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of
Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,’
declares the Lord.”
Enter the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. As the law
prescribed, Jesus returned year after year to Jerusalem to keep the Feast of the
Trumpets to hear His Word read and the stories told. Year after year, He stayed
past the tenth day to the 11 , the Day of Atonement. th
He watched and listen as the High Priest sacrificed the bull and the goat and
the ram, knowing that one day soon He would take their place and ours. He
watched and listened as He witnessed the priest’s and the people’s hands being
laid on the scapegoat, lead through the streets, and outside the walls of Jerusalem
into the wilderness to die, knowing that He would be led outside the walls of
Jerusalem into the wilderness to die. He would take the place of the scapegoat as
well.
John 11:48-50, “‘If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him,
and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.’ 49
But one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said to them, ‘You
know nothing at all, nor do you take into account that it is expedient for you
that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.’”
Like the high priest who had to bathe himself and put on the holy garments
of the office of high priest before making atonement, Jesus was washed in the
waters of the River Jordan, bathed into the Office of High Priest, made unholy by
wrapping Himself in our sins, anointed as the sacrificial Lamb, and was led as the
Scapegoat into the wilderness to be tempted.
All that God commanded in the Old Testament concerning feasts, festivals,
traditions, rituals, prayers, sacrifices, worship, and more was given as links and
foreshadows between the person and work of Jesus Christ and the people of old.
The blood of the goats, bulls, and rams atoned for sins because God the
Father tied their life and their blood to the life and blood of His only begotten Son,
Jesus Christ. Not only that, God tied Christ’s life and blood to our lives and
offered His Son as an acceptable sacrifice. Romans 5:25 “He who was delivered
over because of our transgressions, and was raised on account of our
justification.”
By the shedding of His own blood, Christ put an end to the bloody mess of
the old covenant. Hebrews 9: 11-12, “He entered through the greater and more
perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; 12 and not
through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy
place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”
Our Day of Atonement came on Good Friday, once and for all. It is the
climax of human history. It is the climax of Lent. This is the real Yom Kippur.
Once and for all and each week on the Lord’s Day, Sunday, the people of
Immanuel in East Peoria celebrate the Feast of Holy Communion. That which was
accomplished on Good Friday and Easter morning, is delivered to us in Christ’s
Church. His Word. His Sacrifice. We are the people of His new covenant. Washed
in His baptism and with His blood.
Amen
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.