No 5

(Yom Kippur)

This day is the most important day in all of the Jewish calendar; for it is on this day that a person’s fate is determined for the coming year. On Yom Kippur or Day of Atonement people fast for the entire 24-hour period and ask forgiveness for the sins they committed in the past year. They read long lists of sins and ask God to forgive them. Some Christians have stood outside synagogues and tried to engage conversation with Jews after the Yom Kippur service and when asked if the person was sure that his or her sins were forgiven, the answer would invariably come back “I truly hope so”. Some orthodox Jewish families still practice a ninth century ritual called “Kapparot”. On the day before Yom Kippur, they kill a chicken (a rooster for men and a hen for women) and swing the dead chicken around their heads three times with the blood spilling all over the place. During this ceremony, they utter the following words “This is my substitute, my vicarious offering, my atonement; this fowl shall meet death, but I shall find a long and pleasant life of peace”. We can fault the Jews for being self-righteous or having rejected Jesus as Messiah, but we cannot fault them for their zeal; some Christians could take example of this zeal and apply it to their lives. The atonement that Jesus Christ made for the Jews and for us is so complete that the veil of the temple was torn in half thus terminating Judaism. He cried out on the cross “it is finished” (John 19:30b). Countless numbers of Jews believed in Jesus when He was on the Earth and some still come to Him for their salvation but some also rely on feasts such as Yom Kippur for their salvation; what a sad realiszation – it is up to us to tell them the good news of the Gospel.