The Scapegoat

I've heard this word before and maybe I knew it came from the Bible but I didn't know where until this morning. It's actually a very strange command that Moses and Aaron are given. They must first find two male goats. Then sacred lots are cast to determine which will be the sin offering and which will be the scapegoat. Once that is determined, the sin offering is slaughtered and its blood is used to purify the Tabernacle. The second goat, the scapegoat, is then brought into the Tabernacle, Aaron lays his hands on the goat's head, and he confesses all of Israel's wickedness, rebellion and sin. Then the goat is brought out into the wilderness and let go.

I'm not sure why this story stands out to me; perhaps it's because the last 20 chapters or so that I've read have been about sacrificing animals and people being unclean. There's something more profound in this story. The goat, walking around with all of Israel's sin, is left to wander alive in the wilderness. I wonder why this is. What's the significance of this goat? Why does one have to be slaughtered first?

Jesus- A Little More Like It

Mark 2:22 "And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the wine would burst the wineskins, and the win and the skins would both be lost. New wine calls for new wineskins."  --in response to the Pharisee's question why the disciples don't fast like John's disciples and the Pharisees

Mark 3:5 "He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts."

Switching back and forth between the Old and the New Testament has highlighted things I might have missed otherwise. I've been spending the last week or so immersed in the rules and laws of Leviticus. It's exhausting (not to mention nauseating) reading all the laws regarding sin and sacrifice.  The law was incredibly rigid. So when we jump forward 8,000 (or so?) years to the time that Jesus walked and taught, how surprising is it that the teachers of the law have hardened hearts, they've been teaching and following these rigid laws for thousands of generations. 

I wrote a couple posts ago about the God of the Old Testament not being the God I thought I knew. The Jesus we see here in Mark, though, comes closed to who I thought God was. (I'd like to say, of course, that I don't claim to know exactly who God is, but what I've come to believe about God is what I am referring to.) He's taken the old law and thrown it out? He's come to replace it, right? He's the new wine. And though the hardened hearts of the Pharisees make him angry, it also saddens him. There's compassion in the sadness. This is the God I believe in.

Could they possibly be the same? How can there be such a rigid dichotomy between the two if they are one and the same?