Scapegoat

Matthew 26:26-30

April 17, 2025 (Maundy Thursday) • Mount Pleasant UMC

I’ve been thinking about the difference between Barney and Easton—I mean, differences other than the fact that one is a dog and one is my grandson. Stick with me here. Dogs are born knowing stuff, they have all kinds of instincts and they know how to do certain things right away. I mean, yes, there are definitely things they have to learn, but basically dogs and animals in general are in fairly good shape minutes after birth because of their instincts. For one thing, they walk pretty quickly after birth! Human beings, on the other hand, have very few instincts. What an animal knows to do right away it takes us quite a while to learn, something I’ve remembered again as I watch Easton grow. Researchers say really the most basic instinct we have is mimicry, imitation. We learn most of the things we learn by imitating others. We learn language and eating and walking and what things to assign value to by watching those closest to us. We pride ourselves on our independence but actually we depend on the community to show us how to do stuff much more than we would like to admit (Zahnd, The Wood Between the Worlds, pgs. 115-116).

Many times that imitation instinct is a good thing. If we didn’t have it we wouldn’t learn to walk and might starve to death. But there is also a dark side to it. Genocide, lynchings, witch hunts, cancel culture and all kinds of violence also come out of humanity’s desire to imitate, to mimic, to fit in with the group. When we imitate to the point of devolving into “us” versus “them” groups, the community begins to tear itself apart—sort of like where our culture is today. But sometimes it’s not group against group. Anthropologists have noticed that sometimes a group will come together against one victim. Instead of the community erupting into widespread violence, their anger and hatred is released on usually an innocent victim. It’s called “scapegoating,” and the name and the practice actually has roots in the Old Testament.

In the book of Leviticus, everyone’s favorite Biblical book, in the midst of the description of the Day of Atonement, the day when all the sins of the community would be forgiven, the Hebrews are told to take a live goat and place it in front of the altar. Then the high priest is to place his hands on the head of the goat, confess the sins of the whole community (which had to have taken a while!), and then drive the goat out into the wilderness. The idea was that the all of the people’s sins were transferred to the goat and when he died in the desert, all would be forgiven. There are stories that sometimes the goat would wander back into the camp, and since you didn’t want your sins coming back, a custom developed where someone would follow the goat to make sure it died. The goat became the “scapegoat,” and it was a way to deal with the people’s sins. It was thought that all the evil of the community up to that time rested on the goat (cf. Leviticus 16:20-22; Zahnd 117).

On a Thursday evening, in a borrowed room in the lower part of Jerusalem, Jesus gathered with his disciples and followers for a final meal. He knew it was the final meal, but most of them probably did not. In Jerusalem, the Passover meal was held on Friday evening, on the Sabbath, and the lambs that were to be used for the meal were slaughtered on Friday afternoon. So when Jesus and the disciples gather for what is apparently their early Passover meal, they don’t have a lamb (cf McKnight, Matthew, pg. 376). At least there is not one on the table. We’ll get to that in a moment.

It’s doubtful that the meal the disciples experienced that night looks anything like a modern Passover, but two things would have been the same. One, it was a meal meant to connect the people now with the Exodus, the moment in history when God rescued the Hebrew people from slavery in Egypt. And two, the host or the head of the household would have had prescribed things to say to help those around the table remember and experience that ancient Exodus. Everything on the table had symbolic meaning already, but Jesus, as he often did, changes it all. He upends the liturgy, changes the prescribed readings and focuses the meaning of the meal. On this night, it was not only about an ancient sacrifice, it was about him. “This is my body…this is my blood…” (26:26, 28; Wright, Matthew for Everyone—Part Two, pg. 155).

As Jesus offered these tokens, I wonder if he looked around the room and into the faces of these, his closet friends. At this point in the week, they would have been pretty much his only friends. Across the room is Peter, upset that Jesus is talking about dying on this special night. This is a night that’s supposed to celebrate freedom, not death. Why is Jesus ruining the mood? Over there is Thomas, who was confused by a lot of what Jesus said and quietly questioned much of it. He wasn’t sure what was happening this night either. On one side of Jesus was Judas, wondering how much Jesus knew about his plans or how much he had guesses. Regardless, Judas insists on calling Jesus “rabbi;” he refused to call him “Lord” (cf. Card, Matthew: The Gospel of Identity, pg. 228). On the other side of Jesus was John, who loved Jesus and was constantly astonished that he had been welcomed into the circle of disciples. Sometimes I wonder if he was proud or humble that he had to seat next to the master.

And then, there’s you and me. We’re there, too. If we claim to be followers of Jesus, we participate in this night’s meal every time we share in what we have come to call holy communion. The disciples were confused, and if we’re not just as confused, we’re not really paying attention. We know what Jesus id going to do tomorrow, which gives us an advantage of perspective over the disciples, but we still struggle to understand it. How could one man’s violent death on a Roman cross bring forgiveness to us here in Terre Haute, almost two thousand years later? Jesus tells the disciples that his blood is “poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (26:28), and while we accept that as truth, especially on this night, we have to admit that a lot of the time it doesn’t make sense.

Until we remember something that was said at Jesus’ baptism, three years before. It was something that probably made little sense to those along the Jordan River that day, but in the Upper Room it begins to. John the Baptist had been preaching and told people point blank he was not the savior of the world (John 1:20). He also told them that he was preparing the way for one who would be greater than he was, for the true savior, and so when Jesus shows up at the river and asks to be baptized himself, John says to the crowd, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). Jesus is the Lamb. He has come to, in some way, take away the sin of the world.

We usually equate John’s words with the lamb that they eat at Passover, but that lamb was never said to take away anyone’s sins. That lamb represented rescue, salvation from slavery. No, the animal that “took away” the people’s sins in the Jewish faith was the scapegoat. That’s why there isn’t a lamb on the table at the Last Supper; Jesus is the lamb. And he’s the lamb rather than the goat because he is innocent. He is an innocent victim, but he is willing to take on all the sin of the world even though he himself didn’t commit a single one (cf. Zahnd 121). The goat didn’t have a choice; Jesus does, and he chooses to take everything on himself. He changes the rules. We don’t have to scapegoat anyone anymore. We don’t have to blame anyone anymore. Jesus has taken it all on himself, all the sin and all the horrible things we do to each other, all the racism and all the sexism and all the other isms, all the ways we find to demonize and hate each other, all the ways we treat each other as less than image bearers of the living God. Jesus took it all on himself and he went into the wilderness and he died. And when he died, all of that died with him. Our world, our culture, continues to hang onto all that dead stuff, even reveling in it, while Jesus offers us a new way to live. Life that really is life (cf. 1 Timothy 6:19).

When Jesus gathers his friends in that Upper Room, in essence he says, “My blood, my life, my death, all for you, all so that sins can be forgiven…here it is!” (Wright 156). He offered it to them then, he offers it to us now. The same forgiveness that was offered in that borrowed Upper Room is available to you and me in this beautiful sanctuary. When the Jews gather for the Passover meal, they believe that the original Exodus points to a better one, to a day when God will deal with Israel’s sin. In fact, through the Old Testament prophet Zechariah God had promised just that: “I will remove the sin of this land in a single day” (Zechariah 3:9). Sin, they knew, was a greater taskmaster than any Egyptian had been. Sacrifices only got them so far in forgiveness; they had to keep doing the sacrifices because they kept sinning and, besides, as the letter to the Hebrews said, “It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). But not the blood of the lamb, the lamb of God, the final scapegoat. And so Jesus, when he lifts the bread and the cup, says that the time has arrived. The moment is now. What God promised long ago is about to come true (cf. Wright 156-157).

And so we gather on this night, guests at the table of Jesus. Nearby, religious leaders are plotting and scheming how to get rid of him. Caiaphas, the high priest at the time, listened to the arguments in the Council and finally put an end to the discussion with these words: “It is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish” (John 11:50). And so it was, though not in the way Caiaphas thought. Jesus offers his life so that all might live and live forever, so that the barrier between God and humankind could be removed. He gave his perfect life as an offering, as the Lamb of God, so that the world would not perish (cf. John 3:16). As you receive the bread and the cup tonight, hear the words echoing down through the corridors of history: “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” This is my body. This is my blood. It is for you. For the forgiveness of sins. The old rugged cross stands forever as a testimony to this truth: we don’t have to scapegoat anyone anymore. Jesus already took our brokenness and made a new way. Thanks be to God!