The Scapegoat

“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 sent it out into the wilderness to die each year. It simply took those sins and went.

My sin, my own guilt, which He was also bearing, prevented Him from any self-defense or even calling out to angels to defend Him. The soldiers who nailed Him to the cross—and I—were all equally in desperate, deadly need of a Redeemer. True, my sins are not as visible, as dramatic as theirs. But He didn’t come to take on only the biggest, most shocking and horrifying sins, but all sins—to take on our sin nature itself. But unlike the scapegoat sent out each year to die, Jesus doesn’t have to do this again and again. No, His death was perfect—never, ever, ever having to be repeated. We reenact and commemorate it each year so we will remember. But for all time and eternity, “It is finished.”

So now, how ought I to live? “In newness of life,” purchased for me by the greatest price ever paid in human history, in all of eternity. Can I believe? Can I live this way? It defies human logic as well as human ability. God Almighty—Father, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit—Triune God—Whose understanding incorporates having lived as a human in the world in which I live: Help me truly believe and, through believing, live the fact of my redemption, my freedom. Help me not crawl back under the death-cloth, of fear, anxiety, anger, blame, ego-indulgence or any of the other self-defeating, truth-scorning temptations that assault me. Truth and Life have won! And win out in the end. Why live as though they haven’t won? Why return to a bondage I’ve been freed from?

Thank you, Jesus, for taking on my sin, including the very sins that continue to tempt me. They can’t win, because the moment I remember that you have taken my sins and my sin nature, and allowed yourself to be my Scapegoat, I can then once again walk in newness of Life, in freedom from guilt and sin. And not only are You my Substitute—“the Way, the Truth and the Life”—but my Way-Shower, my Example, my Perfect Pattern. Because your nature has been implanted in me as my life, I can imitate you as my pattern. “What would Jesus do?” That isn’t just a rhetorical question but my map to the Promised Land, where these temptations to doubt the truth of what I’ve been given won’t apply, won’t exist. I can live this way as long as I remember and continue to look to you, Jesus, my Way and my Way-Shower. Thanks be to God for this inexpressible gift.

*From Richard Rohr’s review on 4/20/19 (Holy Saturday) of the past week’s Center for Action and Contemplation email meditations. This was the quote from last Sunday’s meditation.