Who is Your Scapegoat?

Who is your scapegoat? A Passover Message for 2024 by Donna Diorio, April 22, 2024 We like having scapegoats we can blame so we don't have to own the way we are as human beings. It is easier to scapegoat someone else for how we turned out, or for hiding our own part in sins, or for getting our way or not getting what we really deserve.
     Scapegoating is often blame-shifting. Like in the Bible, we lay our hands on the head of our scapegoat declaring all our sins to fall on their heads.
    Jesus was a willing scapegoat. You may know Him only as the Lamb of God, but He was also the scapegoat of Leviticus 16.
     It is here where we see that as High Priest, Aaron was told he could not enter the "Most Holy Place behind the veil in front of the mercy seat on the ark, or else he will die, because I appear in the cloud above the mercy seat."
     The High Priest of Israel could only enter the Most Holy Place by offering a sin offering for himself and a burnt offering (atonement for him & his family), by wearing only the "holy" garments of "the sacred linen tunic, with linen undergarments. He must tie a linen sash around him and put on the linen turban." And He must wash himself before donning those garments.
     Afterwards Aaron the High Priest was to "take the two goats and present them before the LORD at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting." (Lev 16:7) 8 After Aaron casts lots for the two goats, one for the LORD and the other for the scapegoat, 9 he shall present the goat chosen by lot for the LORD and sacrifice it as a sin offering. 10 But the goat chosen by lot as the scapegoat shall be presented alive before the LORD to make atonement by sending it into the wilderness as the scapegoat."
     Yeshua/Jesus was the first scapegoat sacrificed as a sin offering for all mankind. That was salvation to the Jew first and thousands did come to faith in Yeshua. It was Jews who took the Gospel  into the nations too. Jesus was the Lamb of God in the Passover supper, and He was the Scapegoat sin offering pictured in Leviticus 16. This is important because there is a second scapegoat in Leviticus 16 which is a picture of God setting aside Israel during the period of salvation that would predominantly be among the Gentiles in the nations. In God’s plan to work salvation for the world, first Israel got about 2,000 years, then the Gentiles in the nations have had about 2,000. Now is time when God’s plan(Eph 2:15-16) to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace and reconciling both of them to God in one body through the cross” – meaning uniting both Jewish and gentile believers  as one body of the LORD, Yeshua/Jesus. 
     When that is understood, there can no longer be a hiding place for anti-Semitic Christians.    
      Leviticus 16:20 When Aaron has finished purifying the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting, and the altar, he is to bring forward the live goat. 21 Then he is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities and rebellious acts of the Israelites in regard to all their sins. He is to put them on the goat’s head and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man appointed for the task. 22 The goat will carry on itself all their iniquities into a solitary place, and the man will release it into the wilderness.
This signifies the nation of Israel being sent by God into exile for almost 2,000 years. Israel went into the wilderness looking completely abandoned by God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Israel went out into the nations bearing on themselves all their iniquities, never to be truly assimilated & accepted in the nations because they were scapegoats.
     The "wilderness" or desert is a dry place where we are tested by our spiritual enemy, the demonic. Even Yeshua/Jesus Himself was tested in the wilderness by Satan directly - no underling demons - and Yeshua passed all the testing.  Matthew 4:1-11 "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. . . .11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him."
     Israel also was a scapegoat in the wilderness for two millennia but like all of us, have failed many times over in passing the tests in the wilderness. Without God's spirit, Yeshua's spirit - the Holy Spirit - indwelling us, we can never pass all the tests that come to us in the wilderness of this earthly life. Even with the Holy Spirit, we don't always pass every test, because we yield to self instead. Even as believers we have ongoing need of God's forgiveness to keep ourselves filled with the Spirit of God. The greatest sin that blocks God's forgiveness to all of the children of God, is to be unforgiving to others after He has forgiven us so much. The parable of Matthew 18 addresses this, how bitter unforgiving blocks God forgiveness as we continue to need it in our walk with Yeshua.
     That is where the Jewish people are right now: locked in the bitterness and unforgiveness of all that has happened to her people in the wilderness of the nations, and now in her own God-restored Promised Land. Just as Christians become bitter and unforgiving, thereby attracting demonic tormentors, so also can Messianic Jewish believers. We all have to protect our hearts from bitterness and unforgivness because none of it is okay with our God. We kid ourselves to think so.
     In Zechariah 1 God has something to say about how Israel has been treated by the nations as a scapegoat: 14 Then the angel who was speaking with me said, “Proclaim this word: This is what the LORD of Hosts says: ‘I am very jealous for Jerusalem and Zion, 15 BUT I AM FIERCELY ANGRY WITH THE NATIONS THAT ARE AT EASE. FOR I WAS BUT A LITTLE ANGRY (with Israel), BUT THEY (the nations) HAVE ADDED TO THE CALAMITY (afflicting of Israel).’ 16 Therefore this is what the LORD says: ‘I will return to Jerusalem with mercy, and there My house will be rebuilt, declares the LORD of Hosts, and a measuring line will be stretched out over Jerusalem.’
     Here is what just about everyone in every nation who has afflicted or is afflicting the Jews or the God-orchestrated modern State of Israel should take from that passage: God did NOT appoint YOU to afflict them, nor to make them YOUR scapegoat! God is more than able of exacting just punishment. HE DOESN'T NEED YOU TO PUNISH ANYONE. If you do take this upon yourself because you decided God has cursed them, it makes Him angry, and He will deal with you.
     God is restoring Israel not only physically as a nation, but spiritually because what Yeshua is to us, Savior and Redeemer, He also is to Israel, "Israel's Hope" HaTikvah Israel!
     In Matthew 16, Yeshua was speaking to His Jewish disciples saying in verse 12 "I still have much to tell you, but you cannot yet bear to hear it." This is one of those things that even His disciples could not bear to hear at that point in all that was to happen. God rarely shows us what we will ultimately go through before we are a few steps away from it on the narrow path He is leading us.

     If you have made the Jewish people your scapegoat, the time for repentance is now before God Himself addresses your sins. And for "all Israel" - for all Jews in every place, the Hope of Israel is just waiting for you to turn to Him so He may grant you His shalom, His peace that can erase all bitterness, all unforgiveness and release you to a new life indwelt by the Spirit of the HOLY One of God. Spiritually restored and blessed for the Kingdom of God.