The American Girl, Year Forty-Six: Jubilee Rising.

"If a resident foreigner who is with you prospers and your brother becomes impoverished with regard to him so that he sells himself to a resident foreigner who is with you or to a member of a foreigner’s family, after he has sold himself he retains a right of redemption. One of his brothers may redeem him, or his uncle or his cousin may redeem him, or anyone of the rest of his blood relatives – his family – may redeem him, or if he prospers he may redeem himself. He must calculate with the one who bought him the number of years from the year he sold himself to him until the jubilee year, and the cost of his sale must correspond to the number of years, according to the rate of wages a hired worker would have earned while with him. If there are still many years, in keeping with them he must refund most of the cost of his purchase for his redemption, but if only a few years remain until the jubilee, he must calculate for himself in keeping with the remaining years and refund it for his redemption. He must be with the one who bought him like a yearly hired worker. The one who bought him must not rule over him harshly in your sight. If, however, he is not redeemed in these ways, he must go free in the jubilee year, he and his children with him, because the Israelites are my own servants; they are my servants whom I brought out from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God." (Leviticus 25:47-55, italics mine)

Last week I quietly celebrated my forty-sixth birthday, and a few days afterwards Pastor Sam and I shared a very brief conversation around an experience he'd had when he was forty-six. Our little chat reminded me of the principle of Jubilee, which we find in the closing chapters of Leviticus. At the heart of Jubilee is the notion of buying back time and obtaining freedom: "If there are still many years, in keeping with them he must refund most of the cost of his purchase for his redemption, but if only a few years remain until the jubilee, he must calculate for himself in keeping with the remaining years and refund it for his redemption." (Leviticus 25:51-52).

This is a prophetic reality. When Jubilee arrives, you will be released. Further, if Jubilee arrives and you have not given the expected years of service, you will still be released, though at a cost: a small price if it's a gap of a few years; a high price if it's a gap of many years. Even further, if these standardized redemptive measures are not honored, you will still be released-- not because you have earned the right, but because it is the Lord's Jubilee. And, though the cost in that last example is not necessarily monetary, there is still a cost.

We in the United States of America now stand on the "post" side of this year's general election. And we are again reminded of this past Sunday's sermon, with respect to what Jesus says are important issues (as recorded in Luke chapter 4:18b-19): "He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." The "year of the Lord's favor" is the Jubilee: a public proof that we have been released from our debts, including our sin debt. Jubilee requires that we, in our freedom, walk away from the familiar. We walk away from the routine. It is significant that the Leviticus passage does not say "We are free": it says "We go free." In the year of the Lord's favor, we get up and go. We, as believers, walk away from servitude to sin and we walk into servanthood in Christ.

But what of those persons who don't want to be free? In proclaiming Jubilee and its implications for God's people, Jesus was rejected by those closest to Him: His family, His congregation, His hometown. "When they heard this, all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, forced him out of the town, and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. But he passed through the crowd and went on his way." (Luke 4:28-30, italics mine)

Jubilee is important. Jubilee is exhilarating. Jubilee is costly. Jubilee is coming. 

Don't let it pass you by.