I’m taking a guess that you know what guilt is.  I’ll also take guess that you know about guilt from personal experience.  No one has to describe guilt for us.  You don’t need to be told what guilt feels like.  We experience guilt already as three-year olds after raiding Mum’s bikie barrel; and as teenagers after stealing $5 from her purse.  And there’s little in life that is more wretched than guilt.

Let me tell you of a time when I was wracked by guilt.  In the 1970s, as young adults, my brothers and I had obtained permission from a land-owner to go rabbit shooting on his property in Western Victoria.  When we arrived there we noticed a Fergie tractor in his shed.  We figured that the owner really wouldn’t mind if we rode his tractor around the paddocks instead of us walking – after all we were helping to rid his property of vermin.  After hot-wiring the tractor we started for the gate into the first paddock.  The only problem was that it had been raining all week and less than a hundred metres from the shed the tractor was bogged down to the axles.  I still recall the paralysing feeling of guilt as we fronted up to our land-owner friend to tell him his tractor was no longer where he thought it was.

Guilt is horrible.  Guilt is the result of doing the wrong thing.  Or, to put it into biblical terms, guilt is the outworking of sin in our emotions.  Some folk can be very dismissive of guilt. A cynic once said: guilt is just God’s way of letting you know you’re having a good time.  Well, he was right about one thing.... and that’s God’s involvement in guilt.  However rather than guilt being God’s way of letting us know that we’re having a good time, it’s His reminder that we have something we need to deal with.  In that sense we should never see guilt as something totally negative.  Guilt is actually a gift of God.  It’s like a big flashing sign that says: something in your life needs to change; deal with it!

Already at the dawn of human history there’s a telling instance of guilt.  In Genesis there is the story of Adam and Eve hiding from God in the garden after eating the forbidden fruit.  Guilt made them try to avoid God – something they couldn’t do, and we can’t either.

In the Bible God provided some wonderful solutions for guilt.  A wonderful way God dealt with guilt in the pre-Christian era is what happened on the Day of Atonement.  It’s a ritual that took place once a year and is described in the 16^th chapter of the book of Leviticus.

On the Day of Atonement two goats were taken by Israel’s High Priest.  One goat was sacrificed on the altar.  The other goat – the scapegoat – was taken way out into the wilderness and released there.  It’s a picture of the two ways in which God provided a remedy for human sin.  The sacrificed goat indicated that the sins of the people had been paid for by the shedding of blood.  The scapegoat sent into the wilderness pictures the removal of human guilt – the guilt was transferred to the scapegoat who carried it away into the wilderness.  I find myself wondering: what if the goat came back?  Well, maybe the Israelites posted a guard to make sure that didn’t happen.  However, the point is clear: God not only makes sure the penalty for wrongdoing is paid for in blood, He also provides for the removal of guilt.

I’ll say again that guilt is a terrible thing.  But nothing is more liberating than the removal of guilt.  Let me come back to our rabbiting episode and the story of the bogged tractor.  I clearly remember even today the horrible feeling of guilt... it was with lead in our boots that we fronted up to the land-owner.  However I also remember clearly how he burst into laughter at the sight of three penitent grown men standing on his doorstep.  There was the wonderful feeling of being forgiven.

Today if you struggle with guilt, maybe it’s a sign that there’s something you need to deal with.  However, please remember that the ritual of the Day of Atonement was fulfilled by Jesus when He died on the cross at Calvary.  There He not only paid the penalty of our sins against God, He also took our guilt away.

John Westendorp