Aaron shall present the bull as a sin-offering for himself, and shall make atonement for himself and for his house; he shall slaughter the bull as a sin-offering for himself. He shall take a censer full of coals of fire from the altar before the Lord, and two handfuls of crushed sweet incense, and he shall bring it inside the curtain and put the incense on the fire before the Lord, so that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy-seat that is upon the covenant, or he will die. He shall take some of the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it with his finger on the front of the mercy-seat, and before the mercy-seat he shall sprinkle the blood with his finger seven times.
He shall slaughter the goat of the sin-offering that is for the people and bring its blood inside the curtain, and do with its blood as he did with the blood of the bull, sprinkling it upon the mercy-seat and before the mercy-seat. Thus he shall make atonement for the sanctuary, because of the uncleannesses of the people of Israel, and because of their transgressions, all their sins; and so he shall do for the tent of meeting, which remains with them in the midst of their uncleannesses. No one shall be in the tent of meeting from the time he enters to make atonement in the sanctuary until he comes out and has made atonement for himself and for his house and for all the assembly of Israel. Then he shall go out to the altar that is before the Lord and make atonement on its behalf, and shall take some of the blood of the bull and of the blood of the goat, and put it on each of the horns of the altar. He shall sprinkle some of the blood on it with his finger seven times, and cleanse it and hallow it from the uncleannesses of the people of Israel.
RESPONSORY
Today the Lord is making this agreement with you: you are to be a people peculiarly his own, as he promised you, and provided you keep all his commandments. Then Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, saying. -- “This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you.
In like manner Jesus took also the cup after the supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which shall be shed for you.” -- “This is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you.
From the article “An Atonement Update” by James Alison
The purpose of [the atonement rites] was to remove all the impurities that had accrued in what was meant to be a microcosm of creation, because the Holy of Holies, in the understanding of the Temple, was the place where the Creator dwelt, beyond and outside Creation. The idea was that Creation started from the Temple Veil outwards, while the Holy Place was beyond time, matter, and space. The rite of atonement was about the Lord himself, the Creator, emerging from the Holy of Holies so as to set the people free from their impurities and sins and transgression. In other words, the whole rite was exactly the reverse of what we typically imagine a priestly rite to be about. We tend to have an “Aztec imagination” as regarding the sacrificial system. The hallmark of the sacrificial system is that its priest sacrifices something so as to placate some deity. The Jewish priestly rite was already an enormous advance beyond that world. They understood perfectly well that it was pagan rites that sacrificed victims in order to keep creation going. And one of the ways in which they had advanced beyond that, even before the fall of the Temple and the Exile to Babylon, was the understanding that it was actually God who was doing the work, it was God who was coming out wanting to restore creation, out of his love for his people. And so it is YHWH who emerges from the Holy of Holies dressed in white in order to forgive the people their sins and, more importantly, in order to allow creation to flow. The notion is that humans are inclined to muck up creation; and it is God emerging from the place that symbolises that which is before creation began, “the place of the Creator”. The Holy of Holies was the place that symbolised “before the first day” –which, of course, meant before time, before creation was brought into being. The priest emerged from that and came through the Temple Veil. This was made of very rich material, representing the material world, that which was created. At this point the high priest would don a robe made of the same material as the Veil, to demonstrate that what he was acting out was God coming forth and entering into the world of creation so as to make atonement, to undo the way humans had snarled up that creation. And at that point, having emerged, he would then sprinkle the rest of the temple with the blood that was the Lord’s blood. Now, here’s the interesting point: for the Temple understanding the high priest at this stage was acting “in the person of Yahweh”, and it was the Lord’s blood that was being sprinkled. This was a divine movement to set people free. It was not –as we so often imagine –a priest satisfying a divinity. The reason why the priest had to engage in a prior expiation was because he was about to become a sign of something quite else: acting outwards. The movement is not inwards towards the Holy of Holies; the movement is outwards from the Holy of Holies. So the priest would then come through the Veil –meaning the Lord entering into the world, the created world –and sprinkle all the rest of the Temple, hence setting it free. After which, as the person who was bearing the sins that had been accumulated, he places them on the head of what we call “the scapegoat,” Azazel, which would then be driven outside the town, to the edge of a cliff and cast down, where it would be killed, so that the people’s sins would be taken away.
The early Christians who wrote the New Testament understood very clearly that Jesus was the authentic high priest, who was restoring the eternal covenant that had been established long before; who was coming out from the Holy Place so as to offer himself as an expiation for us, as a concrete living out and demonstration of God’s love for us; and that Jesus was acting this out quite deliberately. In the Second Temple there was no longer a mercy seat. There was no longer anything inside the Holy of Holies. The priestly mysteries had been lost. And this was one of the reasons that there was excitement that here was a priest who was going to fulfil the promises and restore the priestly mysteries. This is a liturgy rather than a theory, the way we live this out as Christians is to remember that the one true sacrifice –that is to say, the place where God gave himself for us in our midst as our victim –has been done. It’s over! The whole of the sacrificial system has been brought to an end. The Holy of Holies has been opened for good.
[In the Eucharist] we find ourselves transported into participating in the “heavenly banquet,” the place where the Lamb is standing as one slaughtered, as in the vision described by the Book of Revelation. This is a Holy of Holies vision; this is a vision of the Holy of Holies now open and flowing everywhere. It is the one true sacrifice that has been done. That does not mean to say “over and done with”. It means that the victorious Lamb is there; his blood is flowing out; the victim, the forgiving victim, is present. And we have access to participate in that atonement, which has been achieved through it being made available to us in our Eucharist. What the Eucharist is for us is the high priest emerging out of the Holy of Holies, giving us his body and blood, as our way into being a living priesthood and a living temple in the world. Now, if that picture is true, then it seems that what our Eucharistic life is supposed to be about is that we are a people who are being turned into the new temple by receiving the body and blood of the self-giving victim, who is already victorious. We are being turned into the new temple that is able to participate in the life of God who is coming out to us here and now. That is what the doctrine of transubstantiation is about. It means: this is not merely our memorial supper; this is, in fact, the heavenly banquet where someone else is the protagonist and we are called out of ourselves into it. We are being called “through the Veil”, into the participation. We are given the signs; which is why the body and blood are not something that hide the divinity but make it manifest. They are signs reaching out to us of what God is actually doing for us.
Musical Selection
O vere digna hóstia, cuius róseo cruóre salus mundo et vitae réddita erant práemia. *Qui pro nobis pérditis sui sánguinis solvit prétium. V. Qui própriam ánimam ponens et resúmens tyránnum trudens vinculo, nobis reserávit paradísum. *Qui pro nobis
O truly fitting sacrifice, through whose crimson blood salvation and the rewards of life were restored to the world. *Who paid the price of His blood for us lost ones. V. He who, laying down and taking up his own life again, thrusting the tyrant into chains, unlocked paradise for us. *Who paid the price.
Collect
O God,
your mercies are beyond measure
and infinite the store of your goodness.
Increase the faith of this people consecrated to you,
that with due understanding we may grasp
how great is the love that created us,
how precious the blood that redeemed us,
and how holy the Spirit who gives us new life.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever. Amen.(Votive Mass The Mercy of God)