Yom Kippur: The most serious day of the year

In one of my last posts I talked about Rosh Hashanah, when Jewish people welcome in the new year and prepare their hearts for Yom Kippur. Well, today is Yom Kippur. And I am so grateful to be in Israel for such an important biblical holy day. It’s the most serious day of the year, and on it all of the country basically shuts down. We went for a walk on the highway and there was hardly a car to be seen.
Yom Kippur is a day of serious prayer, fasting, and synagogue attendance, a time to seek God’s forgiveness and atonement for their sins. When the temple was still standing, two goats were brought to the temple each year. One was slaughtered as judgment for sin, and the other was the “scapegoat.” The high priest would lay his hands on this goat and then he was taken into the wilderness, to “bear all their iniquities on itself” (Lev. 16:22). Everything rested on the high priest. This was the only time anyone could enter into the Holy of Holies…If he didn’t do everything exactly right, the nation was doomed. But if he did, then all was well, and the people were forgiven… until the next year. There is just one problem with all of this. The temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Which means that there are no sacrifices, no high priest, no scapegoat. So the rabbis have made it into a day of introspection and pleading with God to forgive one’s sins. Atonement must be achieved before the end of Yom Kippur, because the Book of Life is then closed until the next year, according to rabbinical thought. Which means that instead of everything resting on the shoulders of the high priest, it rests on each individual. Next week if Shlomo dies, his friends and neighbors will assume it was because he did not repent enough, or do the right things on Yom Kippur. What a horrible burden for these people! Today many of us fasted along with the Jewish people. We got together throughout the day and prayed and repented and praised God for His atonement. Only there’s one major difference. “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come… he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption… Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean…” (Heb. 9:11-12; 10:19-22)