The Goat That Carried It All Away

God had told Moses on the mountain that no one could see his face and live, and before long Aaron's family learned that no one could come near him carelessly, either.

The tabernacle tent was finished now. Aaron's two oldest sons, Nadab and Abihu, filled their fire pans with fire God had never asked for and carried it to him. Fire came out from the LORD, and they died. Aaron did not say a word.

Then the LORD spoke to Moses. "Tell your brother Aaron he must not come behind the curtain whenever he likes, or he will die. That is where I appear, in the cloud over the lid of the ark. This is how Aaron must come in, once a year."

(Behind that thick curtain was the Most Holy Place. Inside sat the ark, a gold box with a gold lid called the mercy seat. It was not a room for a quick peek.)

So on one autumn day each year, the whole camp stopped. No one worked, and no one ate. Aaron bathed and left his priest's robes, the ones with gold and jewels, folded in the tent. He dressed in plain white linen, like a servant.

First he killed a bull for his own sins and his family's. Aaron needed cleaning too. He carried hot coals inside the curtain and poured incense on them until sweet smoke filled the room and hid the mercy seat, so he would not die. Then he sprinkled the bull's blood on the lid and in front of it, seven times.

Next came the two goats. Aaron cast lots over them. (That is a little like drawing straws, and God decided how they fell.)

"This one is for the LORD," Aaron said. "And this one is to be sent away."

He killed the first goat for the people's sins, carried its blood behind the curtain, and sprinkled it the same way.

Then he came out to the second goat, chewing on nothing in particular, with no idea it was the most important goat in Israel. Aaron pressed both hands down on its head and began to confess.

"We grumbled against you in the desert! We bowed down to a calf made of gold! We lied, and we were cruel to each other." On and on he went, every sin of every family, piled onto that one shaggy head.

A man was standing ready. He took the goat's rope and walked it out of the camp, past the last tent, past the last cooking fire, deep into the empty land where no one lived. (Goats are good at finding their way back to a camp full of food, so he walked it a long way.) There he let it go, and it wandered off with all their sins on it.

"On this day," God had promised, "you will be made clean from all your sins."

The goat never came back, but the sins did. By next autumn the camp was full of new ones, and Aaron did it all again. Goats could not take sin away. They could only show what it would take. Priest after priest took his turn, and every autumn another goat walked out into the empty land.

At last another priest came, one with no sin of his own to bring a bull for. Carrying the sins of the whole world, he was led outside the city, the way the goat was led out of the camp, and there he died. On the third day he rose. Later he went up into God's presence in heaven with his own blood, once and for all.

His name is Jesus, and nothing he carries away ever comes back.