The Scapegoat Ritual
Good morning Scripture reading: Leviticus 16 Worship song: By His wounds Meditation: A scapegoat is a goat used in a biblical ritual, described in Leviticus, to achieve atonement and purification for the Israelites. On the Day of Atonement, the people's sins were symbolically transferred to the goat, which was then sent into the wilderness to carry their transgressions away. The ritual that was practice before Christ's sacrificial offering was the priest would lay both his hands upon the head of a live goat and confess over it all the iniquities and transgressions of the sins of the children of Israel, putting them upon the head of the goat, and then send it away by the hand of a competent man into the wilderness and release it in the wild. Today, we are humbly invited into the presence of God's grace to confess our sins before our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and it was for our tra...