Dusty Chins...

Lent looms on the horizon.  When I was a pastor, I typically included a confession of sin in the order of worship during Lent.  Recalling that practice, I turned in my concordance to “confession.”  There it was in Leviticus 16.  It’s about the annual Day of Atonement when the priest followed an ancient ritual to atone for a year’s worth of the people’s sinning.

In one detail, Aaron lays his hands upon the head of a live goat and confesses over it all the sins of the people.  The goat, bearing all these sins, is led away to the wilderness of Azazel.  The “scape-goat” carries away the sins of the people. 

 

Poor beast!  Can’t you see it?  A skinny, old goat—his chin making tracks in the sand because his head is so heavy with sins.  The sad creature wanders around in the wilderness until it croaks and along with it a year’s worth of sins.  PETA would protest this literal scape-goating.

Wouldn’t it be nice if getting rid of our sins were that easy?  Find an old goat, load up the sins, slap its backside, and send it and the wrongdoings off to die. And think of the goat breeders!  They’d get rich.  I do believe there are more sins than goats to carry them. 

The fact is, while getting rid of our sins might not be easy, easing the guilt of them is much easier than loading it on a goat’s head.  Changing ways to avoid certain wrongdoings is hard, hard work.  The disciplines of holding my tongue, resisting temptation, easing anger, avoiding lust, diminishing envy, starving gluttony, denying addictions…the list goes on…are disciplines that take time, prayer, and patience.

However, receiving God’s forgiveness for my numerous sins is much easier than rounding up a scapegoat, literal or figurative.  All I need to do is tell God I’m sorry and ask God to forgive me.  When I become aware of or am confronted with my sinning, I can pray to God for mercy and know that my sin will be removed.  As the Psalmist says, it will be removed from me as far as the east if from the west.

We’ve replaced the Leviticus atonement scapegoat. She tempted me, he enticed me, the advertising was too aggressive, I didn’t read the warning label, I didn’t think anyone would notice, I wasn’t responsible at that time, my parents didn’t praise me enough, the devil made me do it …again, the list drags on.  I think I need to work hard to avoid those scapegoats. When we take personal responsibility for our sins, God is slow to anger and quick to forgive.

Is your chin dusty?  The burdens we bear weigh us down and can cause us to drag through our personal wildernesses.  But you know what?  They don’t have to.  If we insist on dragging around our burdens, it’s our own insistence that becomes another form of sinning.  No one is so good at burden-bearing that God’s help is not needed.  No one’s burdens are so heavy that God can’t lift them.  No one’s sin is so bad that God can’t forgive it.