So I’ve been writing the Bible. It takes quite a bit longer than you might imagine. I’ve been doing it for about 10 months and I’m hoping to finish Leviticus in the next week or so. Anyway, sidebar. So today I was writing in Leviticus 16 and for some reason these middle chapters have taken me much longer than anything has up to this point. I had decided to finish that chapter last night but ended up leaving the last few paragraphs for this morning. So glad I did because I think I would have missed this beautiful word in this beautiful Word if I had done it on a tired brain just looking to check off a to-do item.

So here’s what I saw: Chapter 16 is about the Day of Atonement. It’s told to Moses from the perspective of what Aaron or the high priest was supposed to do on that day. It has a very do this then do that sort of feel to it. We’re told what clothes he should put on and take off when and who should bathe with water after doing what things.

Once the day has been thoroughly mapped out by the Lord we read in verse 29 that on this day you are to “deny yourselves and not do any work.” Now we know that to “not do any work” in levitical terms was to not do much of anything, do only that which could never be deemed ‘work.’ So they were told to do nothing. On that day, you do nothing.

Why was it so important that the people do nothing on this day, you might ask. Well, let’s read on and find out more.

Because on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the Lord, you will be clean from all your sins. Leviticus 16:30

We do nothing. We can do nothing. We are powerless to save ourselves, to “cleanse” ourselves.

BUT, on that day! Without any work on my part, atonement was made for me! I was made clean–while I do nothing and Another did all.

And now, before the Lord, I stand clean from all my sin.

Prior to this astounding picture of grace, sweet grace we are told of the scapegoat. While two goats were brought in for this momentous day only one was killed. The other took the sins of the people and ran as far as the east is to the west and separated those sins from their sinners.

It took two goats to show what my One Savior did: He paid the price for my sin with His blood (Romans 6:23: the ‘wages’ of sin is death) and by doing so He took my sin and sent it as far as the east is from the west.

So you read about the mold and the bodily discharge and the parts of the bulls burned or eaten and you might just miss that this amazing Word isn’t old stuff. These aren’t old rules that told people who aren’t us what they were and weren’t allowed to do. This too is living. This old Word too is active and penetrating and beautiful and life-giving and pertinent to me in this very moment. In the moments when I feel I surely have to ‘work’ just a little. For the moments when that old sin feels so close I can still smell the stink of it on my skin. In that day when it’s simply too hard to believe that I am a dearly loved child invited into the presence of a God who sees me as clean.

Mixed in with all this old stuff is the most eternity altering truth ever told.

And it’s there in pictures and stories, in metaphors and allegory. It’s there waiting to feed your soul and expand your faith.

Lord, don’t let us miss all the greatness of encountering you simply because it’s mixed in with the old stuff.