November 14th, 2007

Last night I went back the small town to the families on the hill. It was raining pretty hard, and one family was not able to make it to the house where we met. I prepared and told the story from Leviticus 16, of the Day of Atonement and the scapegoat. This story gave a pretty good picture of the Tabernacle and the Old Testament sacrificial system.

I began by asking if anyone had heard of the expression "Bode Expiatôrio" or scapegoat. Several of them had good stories to tell about when someone got blamed or punished for someone else's action. I told them that this expression is from the Bible. This got them excited for the story, and so I told it.

After the story, I asked them to retell it. They got the basic idea of the story, but were unable to get some of the details right. I retold the story and then we began a discussion. These were some of the questions.

• Could anyone go into the Holy of Holies to meet with God if he wanted to?
• Why not? What would happen to someone who went in there?
• Why do you think the high priest had to offer a sacrifice and do the other things that God commanded before he could go in?
• What was the sacrifice made for the sins of the people of Israel?
• Why were there 2 goats? What happened to each of them?
• What did Aaron do with the blood of the sacrificed animal? Can you remember other stories where blood was used for something?
• What happened to the scapegoat?
  

One interesting moment was when Lu ask me if all sacrifices involved blood and animals. I ask them to recount the stories they've heard and think about it. They recalled Cain and Able and told me that Cains offering of crops was rejected by God. As they talked about it, they began to key in on the idea of blood and life being given in all the sacrifices. One of them blurted out. OHH. Hey! We still use blood! Everyone looked at him, I sat quietly... waiting to see what he would say. "Haven't you ever heard the expression 'The blood of Jesus?'" he said.

I told them that they were starting to see something very interesting and very important, and that I would only tell one more story from the Old Testament, before I began the story of Jesus.

We prayed and ended for the night.