Jubilee?

Have you heard the song "Days of Elijah" which talks about the year of jubilee?  I love that song.  By definition jubilee means a celebration of certain anniversaries, like a twenty-fifth anniversary.  Did you know that it all started in the Bible?

In Leviticus 25 God introduces the concept of a year of jubilee which was to take place every fifty years. In that year of jubilee all debt could be cancelled and land that was once sold could be returned back to the original owner.  Since the tribes have been divided they have not celebrated this.

When Jesus read from the scriptures in Nazareth (Luke 4) he read from Isaiah 61.  Interestingly enough, in this reading he not only claimed to be the Messiah but he also proclaimed himself as bringing the jubilee. This was something the people anticipated the messiah doing.  They just didn't like Jesus making that announcement.

Lois Tverberg points out in  Listening to the Language of the Bible that Jesus spoke many times of this jubilee freedom from debt, from sin.  It was a big part of his teaching to the people who listened. 

He did bring a freedom from the debt of sin.  And it doesn't happen once every fifty years.  It happens once when we bring him into our life.  And, it's renewed each time we confess our failures and shortcomings.  How cool is that?  To have that feeling of jubilee each and every morning.