“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— The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a remote place; and the man shall release it in the wilderness. (Leviticus 16:20-22)
Scapegoats are biblical. They fulfilled a purpose. Someone or something had to take the blame for the bad judgments of the Israelites. In certain situations, individuals would take the punishment, but there were corporate sins and rebellious attitudes that cast a dark cloud over the whole nation. Enter the scapegoat, a goat that everyone could visibly identify as being “the one.” He took the blame so they didn’t have to. I suppose for a short time, the guilty felt unburdened and free. The scapegoat whio had become the focus of their problems had taken away their problems.
Of course, the problems would re-emerge after a while and the people would have to look for another scapegoat to take the blame.
Our culture has brought back the custom of scapegoats. From Steve Bartram’s interference with a foul ball that could probably given the Chicago Cubs Game 6 in the National League playoff series and taken them into the World Series, to who to blame for high inflation, to who caused the test scores of students to drop, we’re a society that looks for that one person or group of people to take the blame.
Of course, the blame game gets ramped up during political campaign season. In a recent Colorado congressional race, you would have thought each of the candidates from the same political party were the Devil Incarnate.
In Old Testament times, the scapegoat was taken away from the people and into the desert. He was left there, the carrier who took responsibility for the people’s sins.
When Jesus carried his cross to the place of the Skull, our sins were upon Him. He took them to the cross with Him. As Isaiah 53:6 tells us, “…and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” He carried our sins once and for all.
Unlike the scapegoat led out into the desert, Jesus had a choice about being the carrier of our sins, and He chose to take them with Him. As I said at the beginning, scapegoats are biblical. They are also relevant for life today. When something goes wrong, we look for someone to blame.
Jesus, who had no sin, took the blame for my failures. Romans 5:7-8 sum it up:
“Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
Words from WW Blog 