Leviticus 16

Before Atonement was a book by Ian McEwan (and later a movie starring Elizabeth Swann and a young Professor Charles Xavier), it was a word representing the restitution we have to make for our sins. Back in the Old Testament days, atonement involved a complex, intricate process involving specific clothing, a multitude of sacrifices, and a bridge troll's favorite animal.

Because of Jesus' sacrifice, the meticulously ordered procedures of the Day of Atonement seem quaint and irrelevant. Indeed, I doubt even the most diligent of Orthodox Jews carry out all these steps to the letter, especially the ones involving the animal sacrifices. (And, of course, there's no longer a single tabernacle containing the Most Holy Place, and the Ark of the Covenant, as everyone knows, has been collecting dust in a voluminous US government warehouse ever since Indiana Jones found it.) However, God ordained all these steps for a reason, even if it makes no sense to us now.

Have you ever read a book or seen a movie in which all these seemingly random, disconnected elements come together so perfectly in the end, creating an almost ineffable sense of satisfaction? Fantasy author Brandon Sanderson does that a lot, particularly in his Mistborn trilogy. I'll use Signs as an example--it's just an eh-to-OK movie as I don't want to spoil a good book or film, but skip this paragraph if you don't want to find out how M. Night Shyamalan's last decent movie ends. Signs involves an alien invasion, but it focuses on one family, comprising Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Little Miss Sunshine, and the little brother of the guy from Home Alone. Joaquin Phoenix is a failed baseball player, Home Alone has asthma, and Little Miss Sunshine likes to leave glasses of water around the house.

At the end of the movie, an alien threatens the family, spraying a toxic gas into Home Alone. However, he's having an asthma attack and thus isn't affected. Phoenix thwacks the alien with a baseball bat (which anyone, not just an ex-baseball player could do, really), causing the alien to fall and knock over a glass of water onto itself. And, of course, water turns out to be the alien species' weakness. Although this example feels more contrived than some better examples I could have chosen from superior works of fiction, you still get the idea that all these strange atonement procedures will one day make perfect sense when God reveals them to us.

Finally, we witness what may be the origin of the word "scapegoat"--and it's an actual goat onto which people actually transfer their sins. At least poor Billy gets to trot off into the wilderness after all this rather than having to suffer the inimitable pleasures of sacrifice or abuse (verse 10). Ursula K. Le Guin's electrifyingly thought-provoking short story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" offers further ruminations on this concept, but Jesus, of course, is the ultimate scapegoat, the epitome of selfless, undeserved sacrifice. Until He came down to Earth, though, I guess people had to make do with goats.