The sign on the highway said, "For Atonement, Exit Here." Ahhh ... I thought. If it were only that easy!
As I began to think about atonement, it occurred to me that exiting of another sort is certainly necessary to achieving atonement. This is the exodus that takes place when we pray and strive to lead more spiritually based lives. We are departing from a purely material sense of ourselves toward a knowledge of our true being, which is inseparable from God.
In the Old Testament the people often turned to the offering of burnt sacrifices to appease a God who seemed to them to be angry and judging of their faults. Later they learned that the sacrificing of wrongdoing was what would overcome their feeling of alienation from God. As Micah says, "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Mic. 6:8.
