Grace and peace are yours through Jesus Christ who takes our sins away. Amen.

Lamb of God, what a truly dark and empty day this would be for us if you had not willingly died on the cross! Your suffering and death should have been ours. Impress upon us the joy this day should bring into our lives. For by your death you made it possible for us to experience God’s love and forgiveness every day. Help us never to live as though your death was for nothing. Rather enable us to live as ones who have died to sin and been made alive for righteousness. Hear us for the sake of your innocent suffering and death. Amen.

A "lame duck" President met with his successor in the Oval Office. Near the end of the orientation, he presented the incoming leader three numbered envelopes, with specific instructions to open them, in order, when great difficulties arose. After the new President completed his "honeymoon" period with the media and the public, the nation experienced an economic downturn. He opened the first envelope. Inside was a card that read: "Blame me." So he did, criticizing the former administration. After a while, social upheaval brought about a critical domestic crisis. The President opened the second envelope. Inside was a card that read: "Blame my party." He did so, in an overt display of partisan politics. About a year later, foreign policy resulted in serious problems and the President opened the third envelope. Inside, the card read: "Prepare three envelopes."

We love blaming others for our mistakes. Some enterprising business came up with an idea for offering a unique service. The company was called "Rent-A-Scapegoat." They advertised that they would gladly come to any business and accept blame for whatever happened, admitting to nearly anything. I’m surprised Enron or Martha Stewart didn’t hire this firm! We regard a scapegoat as someone we blame for our misfortune.

During the forty days of Lent, we have been praying and weeping and lamenting over our sins. This remembrance leads us to Good Friday where we see Christ unfairly becoming our scapegoat and our sacrificial lamb. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew people would begin each year with repentance, fasting, and soul-searching for the Day of Atonement, or what the Jewish people today call Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is a fascinating day of ritual and reverence. It has been rightly called "the Good Friday of the Old Testament." As we examine this Old Testament festival, we see Jesus taking our place. He takes our place because he was our sacrificial lamb who died our death. He takes our place because he was our scapegoat who carried our sins.

Picture 200,000 people gathering together. They have just finished ten days of weeping, fasting and praying so they can come before God to be cleansed, and have their sins removed. Aaron, the high priest at that time, was charged with the awesome responsibility of going into the presence of God on their behalf. After sacrificing a bull for his own sins, he could then offer a sacrifice for others.

The high priest then sacrificed a goat for the sins of the community. This goat made vicarious, substitutionary atonement – or in simpler terms – it paid the penalty for the peoples’ sins. God was teaching his Old and New Testament people that this is how God would take away sin – through the death of another. We must understand, then, that either we will pay the penalty for our sins, or we accept the sacrifice made on our behalf to cover our sins. The biblical term "atonement" means "to cover or reconcile". Sin alienates – it defiles and separates us from God. Atonement provides a bridge to life, the removal of guilt. Before Christ, forgiveness came through animal sacrifice. These sacrifices found their fulfillment in the death of Christ, the Lamb of God. This is how God delivers us from evil.

In order to accept help, we first have to admit we have a problem. We can blame our parents, society, genetics, government, or we may try to deny there is a problem; but ultimately we are accountable for how we choose to live. This is why the very effective Twelve-Step programs begin with admitting that we’re powerless to conquer habits and vices on our own--we need the help of others, and of God.

God offered his help in Jesus Christ. Christ became our sinless substitute. Christ is not someone we blame, but One who took our blame. The Apostle Paul explains, "God made His Son, who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21). Paul also states that, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us" (Galatians 3:13). God is not obligated to forgive us. Still, out of his great love, he provided the sacrifice and source of our help.

These sacrifices were really shadows of Christ. The Day of Atonement couldn’t really make atonement; it couldn’t really get rid of God’s anger and bring us safely into God’s presence. The Day of Atonement was a prophecy of the single darkest day in all of history—Good Friday—when heaven and hell, sin and grace, met at the cross of Christ. There Jesus did what no animal sacrifice could ever do. He erased our sins.

Like God’s Old Testament people, we are sinners. Our hearts are corrupt. Our sins stain everything that we do, everything that we touch, everything that we are. We hear of people like Faust selling their souls to the devil. In truth, all humankind has revolted against God and sold out to Satan. Lucifer has a legal claim over people. If God treated us justly, there’s only one thing that could happen: we would die and go to hell.

But God, humanly speaking, did the most unfair thing in history. He did something that no human court would ever allow. He let a completely innocent person step up and take our punishment for us. Can you imagine that happening in America? After the jury convicts a murderer, can you imagine any judge letting his lawyer volunteer to be executed for him? That’s what God did. He transferred our guilt to Jesus. Then he rained all his anger and hatred of sin and sinners down on his beloved Son. He didn’t hold anything back. He piled all the hell of every sinner who has ever lived on top of him. Then he killed him. When he was done, our sin was paid for. When he was done, Jesus’ blood—the blood of God’s Son—had washed our guilt away. God no longer had anything to be angry with us about. He did all that because he loves us. We see Jesus taking our place by dieing our death.

The high priest then took the scapegoat and laid his hands on its head. He confessed all the sins that God’s people were guilty of. This is the absolute pinnacle of ten days of mourning, fasting, and weeping over their sins. The priest’s voice boomed out over the hushed crowds: Adultery, uncleanness, immorality, impurity, theft, profanity. One by one, individuals in the throng hung their heads in shame. He continued: bitterness, hatred, murder, greed, lust, envy, and pride. By this time there was loud weeping. The goat must have been struggling under the weight of such a list of sins.

This goat, appropriately called the "scapegoat," was led outside the camp by a Gentile who had no connection with the people of Israel. The Hebrew word for this scapegoat is "ozzazel." This word carries with the idea of being "banished" or "taken away." So the scapegoat was "ozzazelled." This goat with the people’s collective sins was removed from their sight into the desert, never to return. In the time of Christ, the goat would be led to a high rock about twelve miles from Jerusalem where it would be pushed over the edge and killed.

Remember what the people yelled to Pilate on Friday morning: They shouted: "Crucify him! Take him away!" (John 19:15) So Jesus was taken outside the city, by Gentiles, with the crowd shouting "ozzazel." I wonder if the good Jewish guys in the crowds, the ones that knew their Old Testament, the ones that had seen the ozzazel goat taken outside the city year after year, did they see the striking symbolism? Did they get it? Was this the ultimate, final Yom Kippur?

The picture here is beautiful. God piled all the sins of his people onto the scapegoat. That goat took all the sins so far away that they could never get back to his people. Of course, that’s Jesus! Isaiah knew that. He said, "Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted" (Isa 53:4). Echoing this sentiment, Peter writes: "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed." (1 Peter 2:23-24) Jesus was afflicted by God on the cross like no other human being before or since. And in the process, he carried our sorrows away. "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us" (Ps 103:12).

There is a message I want you to hear tonight. Maybe you are beaten down with shame and guilt. Perhaps you are paralyzed by fear that someone knows what you have done, or left undone. It might be lust or gossip or a break up or something else terrible. You are terrified because you know people love to remind you of your failings. Listen to me – the goat has left the building! Many of you believe that you are defined by that sin you just cannot get a handle on. No, you are not defined by your sin. You are defined by your Savior. If you trust Christ as your scapegoat, God no longer holds you accountable for your sins.

God wants to give you freedom. God is in the freedom business, and Jesus the ultimate scapegoat, took your sin and nailed it to a cross so we could live free. Jesus said: "If the Son has set you free, you are free indeed." (John 8:36) And Paul adamantly writes in Romans: "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:1) No condemnation, did you hear that? That means Christ is not accusing you or shaming you. The goat has left the building. We not only need to hear that individually, but as a community has well. The church is a place where we constantly remind each other – "I don’t see a goat around here."

Sometimes I wish that I could erase certain things from my personal history. Do you wish you could undo the sins of your past? Well, Jesus did. They are as far away from you as the east is from the west. They are gone forever! They’re gone because of what Jesus did on Good Friday. He died for them. He paid for them. And the following Sunday he guaranteed that they would never get back to you by rising from the dead. The Great Day of Atonement reminds us that whenever your heart troubles you with your past, God points you to Jesus, who took your place. That’s where you find peace.

Humanly speaking, it wasn’t fair. Jesus never should have carried our sins. Jesus never should have died in our place. The only fair thing would’ve been for us to die and go to hell. Instead, Jesus did those things. God’s love sent him to do those things because God knew that was the only way to satisfy his justice. God is love. Love dies for us and carries our sin and guilt away. Amen.

Be assured that "as far as the east is from the west, so far has [God] removed our transgressions from us." Amen. (Ps 103:12).