Have you ever been given an important message to deliver? In the Bible, the person that was given that responsibility was the prophet. Their function was to deliver the word of God to people. The function of the priest is to provide access to God for the people.

On Mount Sinai, God gave Moses the law by which the children of Israel were to serve God. But God said that if they were disobedient, He would not bless them, and they would lose the joy of their relationship to Him. Many did break the law, but because God knew the frailty of human nature, He made it possible for those who did break the law to make a sacrifice and once again be accepted.

For hundreds of years, God, according to the laws found in Leviticus, made a provision for the children of Israel to have access to Him through the sacrifice of sheep, goats, turtledoves, and the like. This involved the setting up of certain rituals.

Before the Temple was built by Solomon, the people worshiped in the tabernacle, a portable structure that was built and moved around as they wandered in the wilderness. When finally the children of Israel settled in the Promised Land and kings were established, sacrifices were brought not to the tabernacle but the Temple. This is what the people were used to. They had to bring their sacrifices to these places. Nowhere else was acceptable.

The Temple was restricted to certain people. There were priests who could go farther into the temple than the most could, but of the priests, there was one priest and only one who could go from the Holy Place into the Holy of Holies. Only the high priest could make a sacrifice there to atone for the sins of the people, and this took place only once a year on the Day of Atonement.

On the Day of Atonement, the high priest purified and cleansed himself and used two goats for a ritual. The first one, called the scapegoat, had all the sins of the people laid on him through a ritual and then was turned out into the wilderness. Into the lonely wild places of the wilderness, this particular goat carried away the sins of the people.

The other goat became the sacrifice. The Jews believed that life was in the blood. This idea was a part of the sacrificial system. The animal had to die. Then the blood of that animal was taken and sprinkled on the altar and symbolically, at least, sprinkled on the people. The idea was this – that the life itself was in the blood. This animal’s “sacrifice” was the payment for the people’s sins.

We read all through the Old Testament that the children of Israel had a struggle trying to get right and stay right with God. In many ways, it was like the game Grover would play on Sesame Street, “Near and Far.” A new way needed.

The Gospels tell us that Jesus understood that his death on the cross would be the only perfect and acceptable sacrifice. But how was this to be accomplished? Jesus, having under His authority all the power that belonged in heaven and in earth, still made the decision to go the way of suffering, the way of dying, the way of the cross.

You and I, left to our human understanding and resources, would have decided this as the last thing. But we need to make note how of Matthew tells the story of Jesus’ trial. From there, we need to see Jesus finally condemned by that earthly high priest as He goes out to Calvary as our scapegoat. The text describes the agony Jesus suffered as the Lamb of God, sacrificed for the sins of the world.

In the moment that Jesus died on the cross the veil in the temple that separated the Holy of Holies from the Holy Place was torn in two from top to bottom, signifying that people could now enter into the presence of God by a new way. Through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ on Calvary, people were once and for all being permitted to have access to God, a privilege previously reserved only for priests.

This new way was not a surprise. The new way had been foreshadowed. Centuries before, Abraham’s wife had given birth to a son whom he loved. The son was born late in Abraham’s life, and for that reason was the more precious to him. He and Isaac went out one day to make a sacrifice.

The place where this sacrifice was to take place, many archaeologists and Bible scholars believe was that the spot where the Temple and the Holy of Holies were. Through Jesus, God had provided a substitute just as He did for Isaac many years before. This Lamb became our substitute. You and I deserved to die on the cross. Because of our sin, we had no access to God. Because of the imperfection of the sacrificial system, people had no perfect access to God until that day when Jesus died on Calvary.

In the beginning, in order to understand what took place, we had to talk about the tabernacle, and we had to talk about the law, the temple, the altar, the Holy of Holies, and then the sacrifice. But now the need is to point people to Jesus. He is the temple in which God dwells. He is the new law. He is the altar. He is the sacrifice. He is the Holy of Holies. He fulfills the temple worship and the sacrificial system, and the law, and the temple, and the need for priests and go-betweens in a person’s personal relationship to God.

All that the Bible says that the laws and the temple with all of its ritual could ever be, Jesus has become in the New Testament. According to Hebrews 7:17, He is our High Priest “forever, after the order of Melchizedec.” He was a Man sent directly from God. He was of the Spirit and power of God Himself. He is our eternal Priest who has given us free access to our heavenly Father.

As we continue into the Advent season towards Christmas, the celebration of the Incarnation, let us not forget the purpose for which Christ came – to die on a cross so humanity could be reconciled to God.