Today's Scripture Reading (December 30, 2024): Leviticus 16
I remember one bad night when I was a young adult. For some reason, my friends wanted to crash a party. They knew the party was happening just as they knew where it was happening, but we weren't invited to attend. So, the idea was that we would crash the party, and once we were there, no one would know whether or not we were invited.
One of the problems was that I didn't want to go. To start with, parties have never been my thing. I have never enjoyed being in the crush of people, most of whom were strangers. And this would be a party where the only people I knew were the ones with whom I was going. And I could think of many better ways to spend the evening.
We found the party. It was loud and busy. And all the doors were locked, and while we knocked and shouted, we were ignored. And somehow, our lack of luck at crashing the party was my fault because I didn't want to be there in the first place. And so, we parted for the night. My friends went on to their activities, and I crashed at another friend's house and spent the evening listening to some music; as I remember it, the night included a heavy dose of the Canadian rock band Klaatu.
Leviticus declares the tenth day of the seventh month, the month of Tishrei, as the Day of Atonement. But the Jewish Calendar is a little different from ours. For one, there are thirteen months in the Jewish Calendar. But possibly an even more significant difference is that while Nisan is the first month, the New Year is Celebrated on the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month.
And I am sure there is some kind of a party that celebrates the New Year, but that party doesn't last long. In Judaism, New Year's Day begins a period of introspection and repentance for all of the ways that the nation has failed God in the past year; it is a time when the people acknowledge their sins and all of the ways that they needed to improve in the things that they do.
This leads to the tenth day of Tishrei, a day called Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year, but it is not a party. During the First and Second Temple Judaism, it was the one day when the High Priest moved beyond the curtain and into the Holy of Holies. It was a day of solemn sacrifice, the day that the High Priest made atonement for the sins of the people.
In 1973, an Arab coalition attacked Israel. It was called the Ramadan War or the October War, but the most appropriate name is the Yom Kippur War because it began on Yom Kippur, October 6, 1973. After all, according to the Jewish Calendar, October 6 was the date of Yom Kippur in 1973. Because the thirteen-month lunar calendar determines the date, the date for Yom Kippur changes from year to year. When the Gaza attacks occurred on October 7, 2023, one of the first questions from Western Journalists was, "Did the attack correspond somehow with the date of the 1973 attacks." It was a question that seemed to confuse our Jewish friends; after all, Yom Kippur in 2023 fell on September 25.
But there is more than just a confusion over dates that bothers us in Western culture. We are a culture searching for a party we can crash, not a sacrifice we can make. I am convinced that every spring, we want to make a jump from Marti Gras to Easter Sunday. We want the party represented by those holidays rather than the pain and discomfort characterized by Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and the time of sacrifice we call Lent, which happens between those celebrations. And while I know I have trouble convincing people of this, Easter Sunday is not our High Holy Day. Neither is Christmas. Our high holy day is Good Friday. Good Friday is our Yom Kippur, the day atonement was made for sin.
It is the day of the ultimate sacrifice, not a bull sacrificed by the High Priest, but of the Son of God, the perfect creation who died for me and you. Yes, he rose again, defeating death, but that fact is meaningless if we are still separated from God because of our sins. We need our day of Atonement, our Yom Kippur, which is Good Friday. Only then can we be made ready for eternity. What good is eternal life if we are still separated from God by our wrongdoing? Yes, Easter Sunday is a wonderful day of celebration, but only if it is preceded by a day of mourning, repentance, and sacrifice; the celebration of Easter only happens because of the sacrifice of Good Friday two days earlier. Without the sacrifice of Jesus, there is no reason for a party.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Leviticus 17
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