Sermon Cloud

Yom Kippur: This is The Day...of Atonement!
Leviticus 16; Hebrews 9:6-14

Introduction: The story of Sylvia Fraser (Plantinga, Sin, pp 46). How defiled was she? How depraved was he? And how much like them are all of us!

The History of the Feast:
1. Dimensions of the "celebration": a "feast" of cleansing everything by blood b/c everything defiled by sin.
a. Aaron and sons to follow: first careful bath of skin; then linen undergarments, sash, turban; bull for self and family sins; ram as burnt off.; brings blood + smoking incense into H of H; sprinkles blood w/ finger on front of Atonement cover
b. Nation Two goats chosen; 1 for YHWH, 1 for a scapegoat (azazel, lit. "the goat that departs"). Slaughters YHWH's (sin offering-"propitiation" to satisfy req'm't's of holy God), sprinkles blood on cover, burns body outside the camp (v 15, 27). Other goat (Azazel) is "confessed over" (20-1), then driven away from nation (21) bearing sins of people (expiation)
c. Tab/Temple Holy place (16) (defiled by hearing sins all day), tabernacle as whole, altar...15-20. (This done by son of Priest, soon to succeed father - 32)
d. Individuals Scapegoat tender (26), servant who burns YHWH's goat (28)

2. Lessons to be learned from the "celebration"
i. The extent of sin's defilement: everything that sin touches is defiled. And that means "everything", since the nature of sin is the warping defilement of all God made good, of shalom. (Our religion...becomes superstition. Our love...becomes lust or abuse. Parents, who should give love that enables children to rest and trust, take love, forcing children to become like parents to them. (Re. Solzhenitsyn, in Plantinga p. 41: post gulag, all expected him to come to Harvard in 1978 and to deliver address exposing evils of Soviet Union. Instead he "condemned Western godlessness, materialism, and consequent superficiality. The West has thrown away God", he said, as well as "the depths of purpose that used to be attached to belief in God; it has substituted...faddish variations on the pursuit of freedom and happiness."

ii. The price of sin's cleansing: blood everywhere. Sin destroys life, and God wants us to see its horrible cost.

3. Yom Kippur post Temple, and the fork in the road
i. Gained increasing importance post-Exile, as Israel wrestled with "why". Then, the emphasis shifted to repentance and unending repenting. Listen to Dr. Hertz, Pentateuch and Haftoras, "the initiative for atonement lies with the sinner. He cleanses himself upon the Day of Atonement by way of unflinching self-examination and honest confession, and he resolves not to repeat the transgressions of the previous year." Judaism is not conscious of being in need of a Mediator; acc'd to Jewish Maimonides (d. 1204), the act of repenting (emph JRS) atoned for all iniquity." (Noordzij, p 173).
ii. We understand a different truth: atonement requires more than repenting. It requires payment! It requires Christ.

The Point of the Feast:
1. From Heb 9:6-14:
i. we have a better priest: no need to sacrifice for himself (v 7) as Aaron and heirs did
ii. we have a better sacrifice: not blood of goats and calves (v 12), but his own blood! (Heb 13:12-driven "outside the camp"!)
iii. we enjoy a better result: once, for all, eternal redemption. Not just for another year, then required again, but finished. Not just outward cleansing, but the real deal, inward, the cleansing of a guilty conscience (v 13-14).

2. From II Cor 6:2
i. Today is the day!
ii. That is, the Day Of Atonement is not fulfilled just in the 7th Month of the Jewish calendar, but the 7th Month represents the entire period of Christ's ministry from heaven's throne. Therefore, Yom Kippur is celebrated on that day when a person comes to the painful awareness of the extent and cost of his filth and defilement, and then comes to the even more amazing understanding that when Jesus died, when Jesus shed his blood, his guilt is taken away once and for all. To use Jesus' words: "It is finished"!
b. No rituals of penance must continually be offered. The issue is not merely repenting.
c. No perpetual guiltiness need continually be felt. You can be free from guilt!
d. Instead, forgiveness. Forgiveness based on honest understanding of my defilement, but even more on my amazing faith in the sacrifice that paid my debt! I must be not the Pharisee, but the scoundrel Publican.
(Dallas Willard observes that typical late 20th, early 21st C Christians, ask for forgiveness as "Gimme a break". IE., I'm not a horrid sinner; I just need a break. But no, I need more than a break. I need pity because of who I am. If my pride is untouched when I pray for forgiveness, I have not prayed for forgiveness. I don't even understand it.

iii. You and me? Just like Sylvia Fraser's father, really. Living the shiny veneer of one side of life all the while sealing off our character flaws and inconsistencies in another secret part of life. We're filthy. We need atonement. And Christ is our hope!