Yom Kippur is the day of atonement.  It is the day of forgiveness, the day that is central to old Jewish life.  You see, ever since Sinai, the Jews have had this covenant with the Most High.  The terms of this covenant are quite simple:  Obey the law and get blessed, disobey the law and get cursed.  Pretty cut and dry, right?  Well, not so much.  See, man is broken, so broken in fact, that even if he wants to, he cannot obey the law.  See, God gave man a law that reflects His own character, which under unfallen circumstances would be easy to follow, since we are made in His image.  But alas, we are not in unfallen circumstances, and proof that we are so screwed up is in the fact that we even have to try at all when it comes to the holy law of God.  If we were good at heart, we wouldn’t have to try and be good, we would just be good.  But man has a problem.  Even with our own depravity blatently obvious to all around us, it is ever allusive to our own hearts.  See, this Law served and serves a purpose.  It is a good mirror with which to view the soul.  It can’t be completely obeyed by men, and never could have been.  So, what kind of sick joke has the Almighty God played on man?  I mean, giving us a law we can’t live up to, demanding of us behaviors we can’t give.  Ah, these are the words of the unbeliever.  The law serves yet another purpose.  If God had just given us the law, that would have still been more than we deserved, and he would be extolled by angels for His grace and mercy, for giving us a chance at all.  But, sadly, He would be extolled by no men, for by the law alone, we all perish, from Adam to Abraham to Moses.  Yes, even the greatest saints have transgressed this law showing their unfitness for the holy city.  But God, in His infintite wisdom, according to His unfathomable grace, had something else in mind altogether.  The Almighty also set the Jews up with an elaborate sacrificial system.  Designed to show them their uncleanliness as opposed to His Holiness.  The greatest of these sacrifices was the day of atonement.  It was a day when all Isreal would come and confess their sins and lay their hands on a goat who would then be thrown out of the camp to die alone.  But wait!  How did they know they had sinned?  Because the law of God was everywhere they went; on their doorposts, on their walls, heck it was even on their clothing.  Ahh, could you imagine everywhere you turned being confronted by the proof of your unworthiness, the proclamation of your destruction (for by the law, no flesh shall be justified).  Oh how the sensitive concience must have quaked, but back to the point of my message.

In the sacrificial proceedings of Yom Kippur, the high priest would first sacrifice a bull, for the coverings of his own sins; then two rams would be chosen, and lots would be drawn, deeming one as a sacrificial sin to the Lord, and the other would have the sins of the nation confessed onto it’s head and sent away, to a remote area.  Now after the sin sacrifice, before the goat was to be sent away, the blood of the sacrifices were taken into the Holy of Holies, where the ark of the covenant stood.  This place was only entered once a year and then only by the high priest.  It was on this day, the day of atonement, where the high priest would enter in, and sprinkle the blood of the sacrifices onto the mercy seat of the ark as payment for the nation’s sins, and the high priest would interced for the people of God in the presence of God.  What mercy God the provider gives them a way of forgiveness, and the law exists to show them their need!  The law and the sacrifice hold hands leading men into the knowledge of their need for mercy.  Even back then, the forgiveness was given at the sacrifice, because if we could obey we would need no sacrifice.  Yet, this was ont the end of either of these things.  For animal blood cannot truly pay for the sins of mankind.  No livestock can represent me before the Father.  No, indeed the sacrifices of the Old Covenant were but a shadow of the reality that the most merciful God had in store for men.  Isaiah speaks of this reality 700 years before it occurs.  Ezekiel and Jeramiah speak of it as well.  So do all the prophets.  Indeed, the entire Old Covenant screams of the New Covenant and of the one who will bring it to pass!  A covenant that far surpasses the old one and includes people from all tribes and tongues, a covenant with a permanent high priest who makes the great sacrifice once and for all!  Indeed, the Old Covenant screams of Christ, tells of Christ, and pleads for Christ.

The law was, and is not meant to be justified by legalism – can’t work.  It does not solve the problem.  The very fact that you have to work and diligently follow the rules proves you depraved and guilty, by nature opposed to the law.  But that is what the law does, it is merciless in it’s condemnation, for your own good!  It will grind you into powder by revealing your soul to you again and again, and if you pray for an honest eye, it will correctly show you that you have no hope in it.  It drives you to the sacrifice that God has provided for your sins.  If it does it’s work, well, you are broken and bleeding, no longer able to trust in yourself, and aware of your need for mercy.  Ah, wonder of wonders that the only way to heal us is to hurt us.  Truly, the words of our Master, “He who humbles himself shall be exalted, and he who exalts himself shall be humbled” are given new meaning at the cross.  Every man is a hero in his own mind, nobody thinks that he or she is as bad as all that; most don’t think they merit Hell.  But once the Holy Spirit applies the law to a heart, all illusions are gone.  Then, does the Gallilean become most precious.  Then does the Messiah become worthy.  It is in the very sight of our depravity that His mercy is clearly seen for it’s enormity and greatness.  It is in this place that the day of atonement is precious to us.  “When those who crucified your Son rejoice around your throne!” Christ is the day of atonement.  He is the goat sent outside the camp to die forsaken.  He is the beast of burden that is crushed under the weight of our sins.  He is the high priest who enters the Holy of Holies with the blood of the sacrifice which is His own. He stands before our Father, not one day a year, but perpetually interceding for us.  He is the ark of the covenant where God meets with man.  Glory to the most wonderful, most merciful, all gracious God of the universe!!! Great in holiness and humility, worthy of all praise forever!! Christ, the King in whose face I see the glory of God.

Amen.