Yom Kippur
Aaron, the priest, was to have a bull for the sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering. Following this, he was to take two male goats from the people for a sin offering and one ram for a burnt offering. Aaron needed to be consecrated first, himself and his house. After this came the two goats. The lots were cast and the process began.
Gary Schnittjer , in his book called The Torah Story , writes:
The Day of Atonement was a significant annual ceremony. Within the context of the community in the wilderness it made possible their ability to dwell with the presence of God's glory and survive. The alternatives were unthinkable-death or his departure from them. The Day of Atonement was the definitive necessary cleansing for the relationship...the motion of verses 11-22 depicts the purification, from sin and uncleanness, beginning in the inmost part of the camp-the holy of holies-and extending across all of the borderlines of holiness. The scapegoat bore the sin of the chosen people and was expelled outside the limits of the community. The annual commemoration reinforced the symbolic and real differences between the holiness within the community and the hostile wilderness within which the people lived.
At the heart of the Day of Atonement practices were two goats. As determined by casting lots, perhaps similar to dice, one goat was slaughtered and the blood was sprinkled on and before the "mercy seat" of the ark-the lid with the humble cherubim. The other was the "scapegoat," a term aptly coined by the early English translator William Tyndale and used in the King James Version. The idea of the term "scapegoat" follows the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew word zazel as "the one sent away."
The term zazel is used in two different ways in Leviticus 16. It is used of the scapegoat itself, which was sent into the wilderness, and it was used of the one to whom the goat was sent.
Schnittjer goes on:
Jesus proclaimed new torah regarding the clean and unclean by the power and authority of his word.
I would add to all of this the significance of the Cross. The sacrifice that was made for the forgiveness of sins and the expiation, or removal of sins, was done by Jesus on the Cross.
John MacArthur comments on Leviticus 16:8, referring to the scapegoat:
This goat (literally Azazel or "escape goat") pictured the substitutionary bearing and total removal of sin which would later be fully accomplished by Jesus Christ (cf. Matthew 20:28; John 1:29; 2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 1:4; 3:13; Hebrews 8:28; 10:1-10; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 2:2).
This "sin offering of atonement" (Numbers 29:11) portrayed Christ's substitutionary sacrifice (vv. 21, 22) with the result that the sinner's sins were removed (v. 22)...Christ lived out this representation when He cried from the cross, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46)
Yom Kippur is, for the Christian, more of a remembrance of what Christ has/had done. The forgiveness of sins is available. The Atonement has been made. And like a friend said on Twitter...it's about Jesus Christ.
