biblical context

The Gospel as a Year of Jubilee

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

In Leviticus, we read an intriguing law that God gave Israel about observing a year of Jubilee:

‘You are also to count off seven sabbaths of years for yourself, seven times seven years, so that you have the time of the seven sabbaths of years, namely, forty-nine years. ‘You shall then sound a ram’s horn abroad on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement you shall sound a horn all through your land. ‘You shall thus consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, and each of you shall return to his own property, and each of you shall return to his family. ‘You shall have the fiftieth year as a jubilee; you shall not sow, nor reap its aftergrowth, nor gather in from its untrimmed vines. (Lev 25:8 – 11)

God proclaimed that every seventh year was to be a sabbath for the land: crops were not to be planted, and they were to live on what God had provided before that time and what grew up by itself.

After seven sabbath years came a year of Jubilee, which along with being a Sabbath for the land, also was a “year of release.” This meant that all Israelites who were in bondage were freed, and anyone who had sold his ancestral property would receive it back, and all debts were forgiven. The word “Jubilee” comes from the word Yovel, a Hebrew word for the ram’s horn that was used to proclaim the year.

Another name for it was a “year of release (deror).”  The Hebrew word deror means “release” or “liberty.” Early Americans, who knew their Bibles better than we do, placed Leviticus 25:10 on the Liberty Bell: “Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof.”

Our founding fathers found inspiration in the year of Jubilee as they were establishing the United States. What did they find so special about this concept?

The Purpose of the Year of Jubilee

As part of God’s covenant with Israel, he promised to give the Israelites the land of Canaan. After the conquest of the land, it was divided among the tribes so that each family had its own share. In the ancient world, owning land was greatly prized because it was a source of food, income and security.

In that economy where people depended on the crops they raised, if a family had a bad harvest and ran out of food, they were forced to go into debt or even sell their land. If they couldn’t recover but fell further behind, they would have to sell themselves into slavery or leave the country, like Naomi and Elimelech in the book of Ruth.

People did not borrow money and sell land for business purposes, they did it only out of desperate economic need. So the Jubilee was for one main purpose — to provide for the poor who had gone into debt or lost their land, so that they would be able to start over again. Without it, the wealthy would always do better in bad years, and the land would tend to move into their hands while those who had lost their land would become permanently enslaved.

Another effect of the Jubilee would be to stop the destruction of families. If a man lost his land and sold himself and his family into slavery, or if he moved out of the country, he would likely never see his family together again. Part of the reason Naomi was distraught was because not only had she lost her hope for future descendants, but by leaving Israel, she also lost her family and past. When she returned, she was reunited with her family.

The year of Jubilee was to be a year that people returned home and families were brought together again.

The evidence suggests that Israel never observed the year of Jubilee. In 2 Chronicles it reports that they never allowed the land to have its Sabbath every seventh year, and if they never did that, they most likely never observed the year of Jubilee either. Several of the prophets lament the exploitation of the poor by the rich, which also hints that they never observed a Jubilee year.

There is, however, evidence from other Middle Eastern countries that years of release were proclaimed in ancient times when a new king came into power. It would be a way to ensure support from the masses when a king would declare all debts void and set free all those in bondage to debt.

It is interesting that the prophets thought of this association of a year of Jubilee with the coming of the Messiah. The primary image of the Messiah was that he would be a king like David, so just as the new kings of other countries declared a Jubilee when they came into power, the Messianic king would as well. Isaiah says:

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor. (Is 61:1-2)

This is a picture of the coming messianic King, right after he is anointed by God, declaring good news of the jubilee year. Each phrase is about how great the “year of the Lord’s favor” will be to those who have been imprisoned or enslaved because of their debt. The king will let them go home and start life over, to their great joy.

Jesus and the Year of Jubilee

In Luke 4, at the beginning of his ministry, Jesus reads the passage from Isaiah 61 in the synagogue in his hometown, and he says “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing!” his audience would have heard this as an obvious claim to be the Messiah who has now come into power.

Throughout Jesus’ ministry he uses images from the year of Jubilee, but he takes the image of the poor person set free from debt, and uses debt as a metaphor of sin. For instance, when the sinful woman comes and washes his feet with her tears and Simon, his host, wonders if he knows what a sinner she is, he tells the parable:

Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.” “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said. (Luke 7:41-43)

The poor who are set free in the Messianic kingdom are the poor in spirit, those who know they are in debt to God because of their sin. So the “good news of the kingdom of God” is that the Messianic King has come, and has declared complete forgiveness of debt — sin —for those who will repent and enter his kingdom. It is good news to the poor rather than to the rich who don’t see that they need to be forgiven.

We see in Jesus’ use of the picture of the Jubilee the greatest picture of God’s grace through Christ. Those in prison are those who are under a crushing debt they could never repay. We see Jesus, the new king, setting prisoners free of debt that they owe because of their sin. Through Jesus’ work on the cross, those who become a part of his Kingdom receive a forgiveness of a debt they cannot repay themselves so that they can start over as new person.

~~~~

Photos: Tony the Misfit on Flickr [CC BY 2.0], Nitin Bhosale on Unsplash, Peter Paul Rubens [Public domain]

Eating at the Lord’s Table

Lois Tverberg

by Lois Tverberg

As part of an insatiable curiosity to understand the Bible’s message in the cultural “language” that it was originally given, I’ve been looking at original cultural message behind our celebration of Communion. Why? Because the ideas behind this practice are found from Genesis to Revelation, and can give us a deeper appreciation of our celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

Eastern cultures throughout Asia and Africa, from the distant past up to the present, have understood that sharing a meal together was a sign of true fellowship. For thousands of years, groups have shared a ceremonial meal together as a symbol of peace and mutual acceptance after making a covenant.

Covenants, in the Eastern mind, are not just business agreements, they are the making of a new relationship between two parties. Often they involve reconciliation after a grievance has been committed. After making a covenant to not take vengeance on each other, the parties sit down to a ceremonial meal. As they eat together, they celebrate their reconciliation with each other, and after that meal, neither party may bring up the grievance ever again.

A fascinating example of this is the account of the sulha, the Arabic word for “table,” or reconciliation meal, between Ilan Zamir, an Israeli Christian, and an Arab family. Zamir had killed the family’s deaf 13 year-old son in a car accident and wanted to seek forgiveness from the family.

He was warned against it, because the cultural traditions would have allowed the family to kill him as vengeance for their son’s death. But an Arab pastor helped him arrange a sulha, a covenant of reconciliation. The ceremony involved Zamir apologizing and offering gifts, the family refusing the gifts, and finally, their sitting down together for a ceremonial meal.

When the father took the first drink of the coffee at the meal, it was a demonstration of his forgiveness. The family then said to him, “Know, O my brother, that you are in place of this son who has died. You have a family and a home somewhere else, but know that here is your second home.” What a picture of reconciliation! (The full story can be found at this link.)

The Covenantal Meal In the Old Testament

We see this ancient tradition in many covenantal ceremonies in the Old Testament. Remember the story of Jacob in which he flees from his father-in-law, Laban, with his wives. Laban pursues him, and in their meeting they enact a covenant between each other that that neither will harm the other as they part ways. After they made the covenant, it says:

Then Jacob offered a sacrifice on the mountain, and called his kinsmen to the meal; and they ate the meal and spent the night on the mountain. Early in the morning Laban arose, and kissed his sons and his daughters and blessed them. Then Laban departed and returned to his place. (Gen. 31:54 – 55)

We also see the meal as part of one of the most important covenants in the Old Testament: the covenant between God and the people of Israel on Mt. Sinai. After enacting this covenant on Mt. Sinai, there is a scene that we can hardly appreciate:

Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank. (Ex. 24:9-11)

To a Middle Easterner, the implications of this scene would have been profound. God had made a covenant of peace with this nation, and before anything had been done to break it, they had perfect fellowship with God — they could eat and drink in his presence. Because of the covenantal bond made through the blood of the sacrifices, God had accepted them into his presence.

Not only could they be there, but they even could eat a meal, demonstrating their peaceful relationship with him. This was the beginning of God’s answer to the break in fellowship that occurred in the garden of Eden, when humanity was cast out of God’s presence because of sin.

Throughout the Old Testament, this ceremony of eating and drinking in God’s presence is reenacted through the fellowship offering, literally a “shalom” offering. A family would bring an animal to sacrifice to the tabernacle or temple, and the meat would be eaten by the family and the priest, with the best portions burned as an offering to the Lord.

They saw this as true covenantal communion with God — that they could sit down at a meal with him. It was as if he was truly present at the table with them as they ate. In Deuteronomy 14:22-26, God even tells them to save up a tenth of their money each year and bring it to the temple to have a great fellowship meal with him. They could buy anything they wanted, but they had to invite him to the party!

You may spend the money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen, or sheep, or wine, or strong drink, or whatever your heart desires; and there you shall eat in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household. (Deut 14:26)

We also see this fellowship meal in the great celebrations that occur at important redemptive events in the history of Israel. At the exodus from Egypt they celebrated the Passover, and they still eat this meal to celebrate his faithfulness to them. They celebrated either Passover or a great fellowship offering after they entered the promised land (Josh. 5:10), when they renewed the covenant on Mt. Ebal (Josh. 8:31), when Solomon built the temple (1 Kings 8:33), and later when Hezekiah rededicated it (2 Chron 30:21). The meal was a way to renew their covenant with God and rededicate themselves to fulfilling their part of the covenant.

The Meal in the New Testament

This picture of eating a meal together as a sign of reconciliation and peace also runs throughout the New Testament. In Jesus’ parable about the prodigal son, when the son comes home, his father arranges a feast to celebrate that he is now part of the family again. The meal is a celebration of the renewed harmonious relationship between the son and his family.

After Jesus’ resurrection, we read the odd story of Jesus cooking fish and serving breakfast to the disciples (John 21:9-19). The topic of conversation was a break in their relationship. Jesus says to Peter, “Do you love me?” three times, reminding him of his earlier denials at Jesus’ trial, and then Jesus reinstates him as his disciple. The meal is a demonstration of the reconciliation going on between Jesus and Peter.

We even hear this idea of a meal of reconciliation in the familiar words of Revelation 3:20:

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.

Now we know why it says that Jesus would come in and dine with us: to show us his acceptance of us, and to celebrate the relationship that we have together! It also explains why the predominant picture of heaven is that of a wedding feast, the celebration of the covenantal union of the Lamb and his people. There, we will always have this unbroken fellowship with him.

Communion as Covenantal Meal

From all of this imagery in scripture, we can have a beautiful new picture of what Jesus intended when, at the Last Supper, he broke the bread, then held up the wine and said, “This is the blood of the new covenant – do this in remembrance of me.” Jesus chooses the fellowship meal that had been used many times to celebrate God’s redemption of his people, the Passover meal.

Now, through the blood of Christ’s sacrifice, he is saying that we can enter into the new covenant of forgiveness and have a new, unbroken relationship with him. Like the Arab father, God puts aside all grievances he has with us, and tells us that we are now members of his family! This ceremony assures us of God’s redemption, that we are acceptable in his sight.

We are also reminded that salvation is not just a future event, not just being saved from our sins when we die. Salvation is our coming into fellowship with God, like the prodigal returning to his family. This supper shows that we can enter into God’s presence and have communion with him even in this life, as the seventy elders did on Mt. Sinai. The beauty of the celebration of the Lord’s Supper lies both in the present enjoyment of fellowship with the Lord, as well as the anticipation of unending fellowship with him at the banquet in heaven.

~~~~

Photos: Eczebulun [CC BY-SA 3.0], Berthold Werner [CC BY-SA 3.0], Da Vinci [Public Domain]