Feast of Forgiveness – Day of Atonement

Scripture: Leviticus 16: 11-22; Hebrews 9: 6-14

Sermon: Feast of Forgiveness – Day of Atonement

Topics: feasts, forgiveness, conscience

May 18, 2014

Rev. Mike Abma

LEVITICUS 16: 11-22

11 Aaron shall present the bull as a sin-offering for himself, and shall make atonement for himself and for his house; he shall slaughter the bull as a sin-offering for himself. ¹²He shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the Lord, and two handfuls of crushed sweet incense, and he shall bring it inside the curtain ¹³and put the incense on the fire before the Lord, so that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy-seat^* that is upon the covenant,^* or he will die. ¹⁴He shall take some of the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it with his finger on the front of the mercy-seat,^* and before the mercy-seat^* he shall sprinkle the blood with his finger seven times.

15 He shall slaughter the goat of the sin-offering that is for the people and bring its blood inside the curtain, and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, sprinkling it upon the mercy-seat^* and before the mercy-seat. ^*16Thus he shall make atonement for the sanctuary, because of the uncleannesses of the people of Israel, and because of their transgressions, all their sins; and so he shall do for the tent of meeting, which remains with them in the midst of their uncleannesses. ¹⁷No one shall be in the tent of meeting from the time he enters to make atonement in the sanctuary until he comes out and has made atonement for himself and for his house and for all the assembly of Israel. ¹⁸Then he shall go out to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement on its behalf, and shall take some of the blood of the bull and of the blood of the goat, and put it on each of the horns of the altar. ¹⁹He shall sprinkle some of the blood on it with his finger seven times, and cleanse it and hallow it from the uncleannesses of the people of Israel.

20 When he has finished atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall present the live goat. ²¹Then Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, and confess over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and sending it away into the wilderness by means of someone designated for the task. ^*22The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a barren region; and the goat shall be set free in the wilderness.

Hebrews 9: 6-14

Such preparations having been made, the priests go continually into the first tent^* to carry out their ritual duties; ⁷but only the high priest goes into the second, and he but once a year, and not without taking the blood that he offers for himself and for the sins committed unintentionally by the people. ⁸By this the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the sanctuary has not yet been disclosed as long as the first tent^* is still standing. ⁹This is a symbol^* of the present time, during which gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshipper, ¹⁰but deal only with food and drink and various baptisms, regulations for the body imposed until the time comes to set things right.

11 But when Christ came as a high priest of the good things that have come,^* then through the greater and perfect^* tent^* (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation),¹²he entered once for all into the Holy Place, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. ¹³For if the blood of goats and bulls, with the sprinkling of the ashes of a heifer, sanctifies those who have been defiled so that their flesh is purified, ¹⁴how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit^* offered himself without blemish to God, purify our^* conscience from dead works to worship the living God!

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION

This past December, the Russian General, Mikhail Kalashnikov, passed away at the age of 94. Kalashnikov is best known as the inventor of the world’s most popular assault rifle, the AK-47 — AK his initials, and 47 for 1947, the year he invented it.

Kalashnikov had always boasted that his gun was so easy to make, so easy to maintain, so easy to use, even a child could use it.

The problem is that since 1947

so many AK-47’s were made (100 million at least),

so many are being used (account for 250,000 deaths a year)

so many are in fact in the hands not only of adults but of children, all over the world.

For years, Kalashnikov said that he never lost a night’s sleep over his famous,

or infamous gun.

But after he passed away, it came to light that he, in fact, was troubled,

even tormented, by all the blood his gun had spilt.

His conscience could find no peace.^[1]

THE LEVITICUS WORLD

The world of Leviticus is a foreign world to us.

* there is a Tabernacle protected by a long list of do’s and don’ts.

* there are the Priests in their elaborate garb and elaborate rituals

* there are the sacrifices – so many sacrifices, so much shedding of blood,

so many dead animals.

It makes little sense to us.

We can only begin to make sense of it

if we accept that what they were struggling with back then

is what we continue to struggle with today.

What is that struggle?

Well, we can talk about it in cosmic terms:

the great divorce between heaven and earth,

between God and humanity.

Or we can talk about it in more personal terms:

our own failures, our brokenness, our guilt;

the blood on our hands.

the conscience that never seems to find peace.

We use one small word to capture the cause of this great cosmic and personal struggle.

The word is sin.

Sin is what separates heaven from earth and God from humanity.

Heaven has no sin; earth is infected with it.

God is perfect; we are far from it.

That was the great challenge when God decided to live among his people after they came out of Egypt.

How could a perfect, holy, sinless God

live in the middle of a sin-infected world and a sin-infected people?

The only way was very carefully.

Exodus and Leviticus are all about the arrangements for this to happen.

DAY OF ATONEMENT

First, God’s presence rested in a very small space — the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle.

Only a 15 by 15 by 15 foot space — a tiny closest of heaven on earth.

Second, only the High Priest could enter this space.

He could only enter this space one day a year — on the Day of Atonement, the most important day in the Jewish calendar.

The Day of Atonement – Yom Kippur.

However, the High Priest’s entrance had all kinds of rituals,

all of them dealing with, covering over, and removing sin.

First, there was the High Priest’s own sin.

To address that, he bathed himself.

Then he sacrificed a bull, took its blood and a smoking incense burner.

The incense burner went into the Holy of Holies first filling it with smoke.

Why? To protect the High Priest so that his imperfect self would not gaze directly at the brilliant Holy Perfection of God.

Then the High Priest sprinkled the bull’s blood on the lid of the ark.

Why? To cover, to atone for, his own sinfulness.

Why blood? Because blood represented life – the most precious thing one could offer.

The High Priest did not only enter the Holy of Holies for himself.

He entered as a representative of everyone in Israel.

For their sins, he sacrificed a goat.

The blood of that goat covered, atoned for the sins of Israel,

as well as any sin that may have infected the Tabernacle space.

Finally the High Priest came out of the Holy of Holies,

and put his hands on a second goat (bulletin cover)

He prayed a prayer confessing the sins of the whole nation of Israel.

Then this guilt-carrying goat, this scape-goat,

was led into the wilderness,

an accursed place, a place of death.

For Israel to live in the presence of the Holy and Living God,

this had to happen every year,

on the Day of Atonement,

Yom Kippur,

and it had to happen in the Holy of Holies

for sin to be covered over and guilt to be removed.

YEARS OF ATONEMENT

In the New York Times a while ago, Danielle Gelfand writes about her Jewish upbringing. She was an only child living with her father and mother in New York City. Her parent’s marriage began to fall apart.

They divorced. Danielle remained with her mother.

Her father moved to Florida.

Danielle tried to stay in contact with her father, but it never seemed to work very well. He father always seems distant, distracted, disinterested.

One fall, as Danielle was beginning classes in the University of her dreams, she was so excited, she wanted to share that with her father.

She phoned him and told him all about it.

But he didn’t seem to be listening.

Danielle got so mad, so angry, so said, “Dad, why don’t you ever listen to me?

I hate you.”

And she hung up.

A few days later it was Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement.

Her mother called her.

She called to tell her that her father had taken his own life.

Danielle was crushed.

She writes that now, every year Yom Kippur comes,

She is still looking….

Looking for forgiveness,

Looking for healing,

Looking for atonement.^[2]

HEBREWS

The book of Hebrews was written for all the Danielle’s of this world.

All those whose conscience is bruised, and bothered, and burdened.

All those who are spiritually exhausted,

Trying to make things better

Trying to make amends

Trying to undo what has been done.

The writer of Hebrews says, “Let me show you a better way.”

Let me show you a better High Priest —

a High Priest just like us in every way;

a High Priest that can represent us.

But a High Priest who himself has no sin – blameless.

Let me show you a better blood – not the blood of some animal sacrifice.

Not the blood that has to be sacrificed again and again.

Not the blood of a victim of sin and death.

But rather the blood of the victor over sin and death,

the once-and-for-all sacrifice

whose blood holds the power of eternal life.

Let me show you a better Holy of Holies – not a little curtained room

in a Tabernacle or Temple representing a tiny bit of heaven on earth

but the Real Thing.

A holy High Priest gaining access to the Real Throne Room of Heaven

by the power of his atoning blood.

Let me show you a better forgiveness —

not an atonement with a one-year expiry date

but an atonement that ripples over all space and time:

rippling backwards in time

offering forgiveness to all those in the Old Testament;

rippling forwards in time

offering forgiveness to all those born and all those who will be born;

rippling through all space

causing heaven to one day fully come to earth.

Let me show you the cross of Jesus Christ,

The resurrection of Jesus Christ, says the writer of Hebrews,

So that whatever sin, whatever sin,

burdens you conscience,

well that burden can be removed;

So that whatever guilt stains your conscience

well that guilt can be cleansed;

So that you can begin to live

freely with God,

freely for God.

CONCLUSION

I have a friend from my Calvin days that I have been corresponding with for about 30 years.

Over those years I have heard about his ongoing struggles:

* he feels distant from his parents

* he has difficulty connecting with his wife and kids

* he is disappointed in himself – things he has done and hasn’t done

* he is not sure

He has been in therapy for as long as I have known him — decades:

* always trying to make amends

* always trying to accept himself and accept his past

* always trying to move on in life

* always trying to find that elusive sweet-spot of joy, that little piece of heaven on earth.

There is a certain spiritual exhaustion in

every new therapist he sees,

every new find-your-true-self class he takes

every new hobby he picks up

because nothing quite works.

Nothing is ever enough.

His soul remains weighed down.

Does this sound at all familiar?

Let me join my voice with the voice in Hebrews:

Please stop.

Please stop chasing your proverbial tail-of-guilt in circles.

Please stop all those dead-end, self-help efforts to cure yourself.

Please set your eyes on Jesus,

The only true High Priest,

The once-and-for-all sacrifice,

The only one who knows the way to that sweet-spot of life –

Living with the joy of forgiveness

Living in the sunshine of heaven

Living under the smile of God.

Let me say one more thing about the Day of Atonement.

In Leviticus it says every 49th year, the Day of Atonement kicked off the Year of Jubilee:

A time when all debts were forgiven

All slaves were freed

And everyone got to return home.

There is no record that Israel ever actually enjoyed the Year of Jubilee.

But in Christ Jesus,

Now is the time of God’s favor;

Now is the season of his Jubilee;

Today is the day of salvation;

Today is the Feast of his Forgiveness.

Receive. Accept. Be Free. Enjoy.

Amen

1. January 30, 2014 New York Times ↑

2. Danielle Gelfand, “Years of Atonement” New York Times, Oct., 2011. ↑