A Jubilation, Please
Count off seven sabbaths of years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbaths of years amount to a period of forty-nine years. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each one of you is to return to his family property and each to his own clan. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines. For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.
In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to his own property.
If you sell land to one of your countrymen or buy any from him, do not take advantage of each other. You are to buy from your countryman on the basis of the number of years since the Jubilee. And he is to sell to you on the basis of the number of years left for harvesting crops. When the years are many, you are to increase the price, and when the years are few, you are to decrease the price, because what he is really selling you is the number of crops. Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the LORD your God.
Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land. Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety. You may ask, “What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?” I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.
The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you are but aliens and my tenants. Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land. (Leviticus 25:8-24)
Sometimes I pause from reading to concern myself with plausibility; not so much with historical events, such as the flood and the parting sea or the miracles of Christ and the apostles, but with passages that provide life advice and example. Like how mightily Paul instructs his churches to live or the example of Christ’s cheek-turning love or passages like Leviticus 25, where a Year of Jubilation requires debt to be forgiven, rest to be taken, and slaves to be freed (for an entire year). Who does that? It just doesn’t seem plausible today.
I think it’s because we are overdue for one of these Jubilation Years; somehow (God), somewhere (anywhere), someday (today, please)—Lord grant us some Jubilation and remind us of the plausibility found in Christ.
It must’ve been difficult for most people back then as well, to return land, trust God with food provision, and free their help. But oh, how glorious it must’ve been for the others, for the dejected ones. I love passages that send life to the middle, where the owners and the owned move a little closer to center. I love Romans 3:23, that reminds us we are all sinners and grace-reliant; I love Acts 2:44-45, that reminds us it is possible to share our possessions and live communally; and I love 1 Peter 3:18, that reminds us Christ died for all. It seems the closer we all move to center, the more plausible biblical living becomes.
The Jubilation Year beautifully pointed toward the future redemption and peace of Christ; families that sold land during hardship were returned their fields, workers were given a year of rest and renewal, and slaves were set free—what a glorious picture of the coming salvation, when Christ would permanently erase debts, offer rest, and release the yoke of spiritual slavery.
I’d like a Jubilation year; I’d like to see some debt erased through generosity, a break given to the over consumption and abuse of life’s harvest, and freedom granted from the enslavement to people’s words and acts and perceived power. Please Lord, provide us some Jubilation this day; and let a day become a week and so on and so on.
