Devotion Booklets for Seasons of the Church Year Lent 2018 | Page 48

It’s On the Scapegoat
Sunday, March 25th
Psalm 22:5
The moment that Jesus commandeered the donkey…that was the beginning. The second he entered
into his city of Jerusalem to shouts and palm branches…that was the line on the sand. War was
declared by Jesus…declared on our sin; declared on our death; declared on our nemesis, Satan.
War was declared on each of the times you felt the impulsive need to defend yourself. “I didn’t mean to
hit my sister!” “They made me do it!” “It’s not my fault!” Each one of these empty defenses Jesus picks
up and carries to the end of this week. There he will climb onto your cross to make these words
become forever true: “In you…they trusted and you delivered them.”
Listen to the David recount words which will come out of Jesus’ own mouth by the end of this week:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the
words of my groaning?” There was a very special day each year in the Old Testament called the Day of
Atonement. It was a day when the entire nation of Israel would gather together with two goats. One
goat was the Lord’s and was scheduled to be sacrificed as an offering. The other goat was the
“scapegoat.” The priest would confess all of faults and foibles of the people of Israel and put them on
the goat’s head. Then the scapegoat was taken out to a solitary place in the desert where it would
wander until it died carrying all the sins and wrongs of the people.
This yearly event was a planned picture by God to show us that when our sin is paid for by Jesus’
sacrifice…then are sins are no longer with us. They are removed from us and are as far away from us
as going in an east direction will mean you will never hit a destination in the west.
Jesus is now the scapegoat for you and your failed defenses…and, every other sin you have committed.
Since your sin is on Jesus and he pays for it with his precious blood spilled from his veins as he dies on
the cross…you have been delivered from your sin; from your death; from your nemesis, Satan.
Jesus has declared war so you can give up defending yourself. When you trust in him you will be
delivered and not disappointed.
Prayer: Humble Lord, thank you for being my scapegoat and being forsaken by God so that I will never
know what that is like. Help me to always trust in you and look to you to be delivered from my sins. In
your name is my prayer made. Amen.
Activity: Act out the scapegoat scene with your family. One person volunteer to be the scapegoat and
another put their hands on his head and put the family’s sin there. Send the scapegoat into another
room. If the sins are on the scapegoat, where is it impossible for them to be?
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