scapegoat

When I was a boy, I hated God’s commands about the scapegoat.

You remember. In Leviticus 16:20-22, it says "’When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the tent of meeting and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the wilderness in the care of someone appointed for the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness.’”

That was part of the intricate system of sacrifices God set up so that his people wouldn’t have to bear the penalty for their own sin. Once a year, some poor goat was taken so far out he couldn’t find his way home, and left. No herder to find it water or food, or keep the bears and wolves away. As a boy, it seemed the goat was doomed to a fate that was harsher than just being sacrificed. The goat was doomed to displacement, loneliness, maybe starvation, probably death by mauling.

The goat, of course, foreshadows Jesus, whose ultimate sacrifice would end the need for any other. Jesus too would be lonely, outcast, burdened with the sins of the world, and left in the hands of enemies who would kill him slowly.

That’s sad too, far more sad than the scapegoat. It’s sad because my sin was in that load he carried away. And even more so, because even after the sacrifice, I keep on sinning.

The goat had no idea what was going on. Jesus had every idea, even to knowing my name and my sin. Which was worse?