“The image of the scapegoat powerfully mirrors the universal, but largely unconscious, human need to transfer our guilt onto something (or someone) else by singling out that other for unmerited negative treatment.”* Reading this quote today, I suddenly saw that since Jesus was taking on Himself all of the guilt of all of us, He couldn’t in turn single out his accusers, Pilate, Herod, the soldiers who arrested, whipped, jeered, drove Him, and nailed Him to the cross. Though they were singling Him out for “unmerited negative treatment,” He could not thus single them out. His surrender to and acceptance of His role as sin-bearer—fulfilling for all time and eternity the function of scapegoat for all humanity’s sins—allowed and required Him to see these people as no more guilty than all the rest of humanity. He was not there to blame them but to rescue them—and us. A scapegoat did not blame the Israelite priest who bound it, ritually loaded it with the nation’s sins, and s