This time last week I was busy rummaging around in boxes of soft toys under my daughters' beds - trying to find a range of farmyard animals. Specifically I was looking for a goat and two sheep. I already had the promise of one goat and one bull.
No doubt the priests of Israel that were living in the time of Moses spent a lot longer, and were much more careful about the five animals that they choose. God had been very specific. A bull, two rams and two goats all a year old and without defect - rummaging around at the last minute simply would not do.
The Day of Atonement was (and still is) the holiest day within the Jewish calendar. The Book of Leviticus is arranged with chapter 16, the Day of Atonement, at its centre. It was the one day in the year when the whole community confessed their sin before God and received forgiveness.
Atonement means 'a making at one' - the work of reconciliation between two separated parties. In this case it means the restoration of the relationship between God and his people.
There are lots of different elements to the ritual. First of all the High Priest needs to make a sacrifice to deal with his own sin - so that he can safely come before God and represent the people. Then the Tabernacle itself, and the altars and other 'furniture' need to be cleansed - they have been made impure by their presence among the people. Then the sins of the people are placed on the Scape Goat and it is sent off into the wilderness carrying the sins of the people with it (see here for yesterday's Scape Goat post). Then burnt offerings are made to bring about atonement for the sin of the High Priest and the people.
God takes the people's sin seriously - it separates him from them - but he also loves them and wants to live with them. And therefore he makes it possible, through the substitution of one life in the place of another, for that sin to be dealt with.
Of course, as we read on from Leviticus, through the Old Testament, and into the New Testament, we discover that the ritual of the Day of Atonement was pointing forward to another, greater, sacrifice, one life in the place of another...
