1.
Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation
of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our
Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word today comes from
Leviticus 16:11-22 (read the text). It’s
entitled, “What God Does for
Sinners: The Covering or Atonement,” dear
brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
Imagine what it must have been like
to “go to church” in Old Testament
times. If we could see things back then, we would find them different from
church services to which we have grown accustomed. At the tabernacle, later the
temple, a great deal of blood was spilled as animals were sacrificed daily, one
after another. Strange as we may find these rituals they can still point us to
why we go to church today.
3.
Our text from Leviticus tells about
the one day of the year when all God’s people were to fast. Special sacrifices
were offered. The blood from those sacrifices was sprinkled in a place that
could be entered only by one man, only on that day. This was the tenth day of
the month of Tishri: the Day of Atonement,
the day the cover was covered. There was a reason for this Day of Atonement.
Atonement is what God does for sinners. He does it in Christ. The Lord had called Israel to be his own
people. Psalm 136 tells of his creating work and his redemption of his people
from Egypt, including their deliverance at the Red Sea. Up to and including
that deliverance, the emphasis in the books of Moses (the first five books of
the Bible) had fallen upon what kind of God the Lord was for Israel. From that
point on—for the rest of the Book of Exodus and continuing into Leviticus,
Numbers, and Deuteronomy—the overall accent switches to what kind of people
Israel would be for the Lord. A holy God
must have a holy people. Yet Israel was not holy. In so many ways, it didn’t
think or act any differently than the rest of the nations. It didn’t show that
it had been set apart or called out by the holy God. Again and again Israel in
effect raised the question: how can an unholy people live with a God who is
holy, holy, holy?
4.
We face much the same question.
Today we may sing “God Himself is
present,” but how are we doing as his people in his presence? If it were a
crime to be a Christian, could a prosecutor find enough evidence in your life
and mine to convict us, except for Sunday mornings and maybe some other
particular occasions? Would there be enough evidence in our lives after we
leave this building? For the great bulk of the time, do we pretty much act like
everyone else? Do we live as if we are not especially separate or distinct—in
other words, not holy? If prayer were a
crime, would there be enough evidence to convict us when we are at home, on the
job, riding back and forth in the car? Although a crisis may drive us to our
knees, how much evidence could a prosecutor find of our prayer life at the
times when we think things are going pretty well? Do we begin to take on the attitudes of the
world around us? Do we want to be “nice”
to the point that we will not wish to rock the boat by identifying ourselves as
belonging to the Lord? That is, do we not want even to appear to be God’s
people? Do we not want to look like we are holy?
5.
How can an unholy people live with a
holy God? When Peter the disciple hit a point of awareness that Jesus was none
other than God in the flesh, he went to Christ and said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8). Peter
realized that a holy God presents a threat to an unholy people. With a holy God,
an unholy people cannot live.
6.
How can you and I live with a holy
God? In the Old Testament, this holy God
“tented” in the midst of his people
by putting his tabernacle right in the middle of the area where the twelve
tribes of Israel camped. For the Lord’s answer to their problem was going to
come at the tabernacle (later, the temple). Here the Lord was going to deal
with sin in the lives of his people. The tenth day of Tishri, the day the cover
was covered, was called the Day of Atonement.
7.
“Atonement”
is an English word designed to say that God and man, once separate from one
another, have been brought back together and placed “at one.” “Atonement” is
“at-one-ment.” You could call the Day of Atonement the day for turning
God’s anger into love. On the Day of
Atonement the high priest served in the Lord’s presence. As mentioned, this was
the one day out of the year when he could go into the Holy of Holies in the
tabernacle (later, the temple) with the sacrificial blood. The New Testament
notes that Christ “entered once for all
into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by
means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption” (Hebrews
9:12). Christ went beyond being the High Priest by also becoming the
sacrificial Victim. He did not sacrifice animals. He sacrificed himself.
8.
On the Day of Atonement, the high
priest sacrificed a bull for himself and his family. At this point no parallel
exists between the Day of Atonement and the work of Christ. Jesus, our High
Priest, needed to make no sacrifice for any sin of his own. He was in every
respect tempted like us, yet he never sinned (Hebrews 4:15). Christ went before
God as the one and only Holy One, yet he was held responsible for all the sin
of all of us unholy ones.
9.
After the high priest offered a bull
as a sacrifice for his own sin, he killed the first of two sacrificial goats
and brought its blood into the Holy of Holies, as he had done with the blood of
the bull. In the Holy of Holies stood the ark of the covenant, a sort of box
that contained among other things the two tables on which God had written the
Ten Commandments. The top of the ark was made of gold. It was called the “mercy seat.” There the high priest
sprinkled the blood of the first goat, the sacrifice for the sins of the
people—just as he had earlier sprinkled the blood of the bull, the sacrifice
for his own sins and those of his family.
10.
In so doing, the high priest covered
the cover with blood. The sacrificial blood covered the cover. It came between
the high priest, who represented all the people, and God’s law. When this
occurred, then the law could no longer condemn. The blood of the sacrifice
saved the lives of the people when it covered the cover. The word for that
cover, the mercy seat, was used by St. John in the New Testament when he
proclaimed, “If anyone does sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation
for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world”
(1 John 2:1–2). On the Day of Atonement, God and man were made to be at one
with each other. It was the day for turning God’s anger into love.
11.
Christ was THE Sacrifice who took
away sin. The ritual of the Day of Atonement showed Israel what Jesus would
eventually come and do. The sacrifices themselves had no power to pay for sin.
As a hymn puts it, Not all the blood of
beasts, On Jewish altars slain, Could give the guilty conscience peace Or wash
away the stain. (TLH 156:1)
12.
This fact can be seen in the Day of
Atonement ritual, for the very next thing the high priest did was to get rid of
sin again. He took the second goat and put his hands on its head, confessing
the sins of the people and ritually transferring all their sins to that animal.
Then a man took the second goat out into the wilderness and lost it there. All
the sin of the people was to be considered gone, as the goat was gone. Christ is
the Lamb of God who carries away the sin of the world (John 1:29). So we sing
to him, My faith would lay her hand, On
that dear head of Thine, While like a penitent I stand, And there confess my
sin. (TLH 156:3)
13.
On the Day of Atonement, God and man
were made to be at one with each other. It was the day for turning God’s anger
into love. The Day of Atonement came
every year on the tenth day of Tishri. It served as an annual reminder that the
number one problem Israel had was not diet, environment, finances, bad social
systems, or any such thing. God’s Old Testament people had only to look in the
mirror. Like them, our problem is our sin and guilt before God, for like them,
we do not live holy lives.
14.
There is only one thing to be done
with sin: get rid of it. And there is only One who can truly do this, the Lord
himself. He is the only One from whom we can receive holiness. The Day of
Atonement formed an annual reminder that through the shedding of sacrificial
blood he was going to confront sin and guilt as only he could. He did so in
Christ, who shed his own blood. Jesus, the great High Priest, became the great
sacrificial victim. He did it for you.
15.
The Day of Atonement sacrifices did
not, in and of themselves, pay for sins. They did not pacify God or turn his
anger into love. Rather, on the Day of Atonement God was truly giving, and
people were really receiving, the blessings that Christ was going to win for
them by making atonement through his life and death. On the Day of Atonement,
God’s people came to get what they needed most: the forgiveness of their sins
and, holiness before God.
16.
This is one respect in which our
worship is similar to ancient Israel’s. For this is also why we come to church
week after week, month after month, year after year. Where God’s Word is, there
he covers his people in the blood of the crucified and risen Christ. Here, as
we receive God’s Word and Sacraments in faith, we are picking up the blessings
won for us by Christ. For on account of Christ and through earthly means, the
holy God gives us unholy people what we need most: holiness. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all
understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life
everlasting. Amen.
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