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Actually, my "day of atonement" is every Lord's Day when I gather together with the people of God and recall what Christ has done for me and my household. We sing praise to Him, we pray to Him, we hear Him speak to us through His Word from His ordained elders, and we share in the new covenant meal.

And in reality Christ Himself is our true Day of Atonement. That is what the day represented, the coming of Christ to make propitiation and expiation before God because of our sin. He is our kippur, our covering. He is both the Lamb shed to atone for our sins, and the mercy seat where God comes to dwell with His people and which hides the guilt of the law from the eyes of God. He is the Great High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, most unlike the Levitical priests who could not offer perfection. "Year after year" people needed to return to have the blood of animals shed to try to take away sins. "Year after year" the high priest had to first atone for his own sins, then he could minister for the people.

But Christ is our Perfection. We no longer need to return in the futility of "year after year" ceremonies. "When He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high."

"Who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

There are really 52 "most Holy days" in the Christian calendar, one for every week. The annual sabbaths have passed away since they were but a shadow of Jesus Christ who is the "good things to come".

We no longer live in the shadows since we have been transformed into the sons of Light (John 12:36; 1 Thess. 5:5).

We look back on Christ's atoning work when we gather together with our fellow believers and celebrate the Lord's Supper. In the simplicity of bread and wine we are reminded of His broken body and shed blood of the new covenant on our behalf. And we do this continually and often until He comes again.

"But now [Christ] has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises."

The old covenant Yom Kippur, which unbelieving Judaism still tries imperfectly to recall, is merely a reminder that we participate in a better covenant. One not established with Levites and the blood of animals shed "year after year". But in the blood of Jesus Christ shed once for all time to save His people from their sins.

The old covenat could only hold out an imperfect hope of salvation since the offerings and priests were both temporal. The new covenant is a surety of salvation since it is made for us by the eternal Son of God.

Let us cast off the shadows and walk in the light of Christ's new covenant.