FREEDOM 50
A Sermon On:
LEVITICUS 25.1-23
PREPARED BY
KEN GEHRELS
PASTOR
CALVIN CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH
NEPEAN, ONTARIO
FREEDOM 55
There were a series of commercials aired some time ago. Perhaps you remember them. They featured a young man who is suddenly transported from his present life situation of hard work and uncertainty to some luxurious state. In one commercial it was a yacht. Another featured a sports car. And he sees himself there at age 55.
The product offered was from an insurance company and called "Freedom 55." Plan carefully. Invest right and you'll be able to hit age 55 free from worry, with no obligations, cares or concerns.
Freedom! At least that is what they say.
FREEDOM 50 - The Year Of Jubilee Detailed
Did you know that there was a Freedom-type plan in place long before this insurance company was even a glimmer in somebody's mind?
Only it wasn't called "Freedom 55."
I don't know. Perhaps the folks who took part in it called it "Freedom 50." Because that's how long it took to kick in -- 50 years.
It's a plan talked about in the Bible. I'd invite you to join me in reading about it.
LEVITICUS 25.1-23
The entire book of Leviticus is focused on giving the rules for living, healthy and whole living to a new nation, the people of Israel who had just been freed from generations of horrendous captivity in Egypt. They were travelling to the land God had promised them would be theirs.
These were not meant to be restrictive laws, crimping life. Like a parent who desires the best for her children and so tells them things like "don't touch a hot stove; don't play on the street; don't swallow poison" so their loving Heavenly Father granted them the privilege of having His Law.
Among those laws were statements about rest. Work for a time, and then rest -- sabbath time. That cycle of work and rest was decreed by God. Every seven days everyone was to stop working and rest. Every seven years everyone was to rest and the land was to also rest. No planting. No pruning. No harvesting. Every seven times they did this cycle of seven years there was a special year thrown in -- also a time for resting for everyone and everything. That was the year of Jubilee, the 50th year.Jubilee began at the feast of atonement, described in Leviticus 16. It was a great complex feast in which the sinfulness of the people was acknowledged, and sacrifice was made to purge out that sin and allow them to stand as one before Holy God. They were made one with each other, and one with Him.
Atonement -- at-one-ment.
At the end of the Day of Atonement a horn was blown and the year of Jubilee began.
If you had run into financial problems during the previous 49 years, you might have had to sell the farm, or even worse, sell yourself into slavery in order to provide for your family. But in this year you were set free! Your debts were cancelled and you were given a fresh start.
When the people of Israel entered the land of Canaan, each was apportioned 10 to 20 acres, and this was to remain in the family forever. It was an everlasting home in Canaan, in the Kingdom of God. Jubilee was the year when those who had to sell their plot got it back.
Imagine Jubilee for the slave - going home! Reunited with your family! Restored to your land! Rescued from the despair of slavery to the dignity of being an equal to your master.
Jubilee levelled the playing field among God's people.
All were equals in the land again.
All were free.
PAYOFFS - Jubilee's Basis
Jubilee - a year of freedom. A year of restoration. A year of rest. Renewal.
Rest - that is something God ordained right in the very fabric of creation. The need for rest is just as foundational as the Law of Gravity or the Laws of Thermodynamics. It's simply the way things are. Get enough rest and you will not get sick as often. Rest - nature needs it, too. A friend of mine lives on an apple farm. Occasionally there is a row, or part of the orchard that does not get pruned. That same year in which the trees missed their regular pruning there are very few apples. The trees are having a rest. But, it always is amazing that on the following year those trees produce so many apples it almost makes up for the year before. Jubilee. A God-given time for rest.
But it was far more than that. Jubilee goes beyond taking a breather, going to the beach and sitting at the cottage. Jubilee was given to Israel as a time of spiritual reflection. It was a time of forced focus on faith and trust.
People had to forgive debts, return property and set slaves free.
So they were reminded of the debt of sin they were forgiven. And the property in Canaan that had so freely been given to them. And their own release from slavery.
They were reminded to whom it was that they all equally belonged.
To whom they were all equally indebted.
Upon whom they all totally depended.
Jubilee - A time when they relearned to trust the Lord. Remember, it was an agriculturally based economy. And between the Sabbath year and Jubilee there was a three year period of no crop harvest. There was no planting on the 49th year, no harvest on 50th; no planting on 50th, no harvest on 51st; plant on 51st and finally harvest on 52nd.God says in v.18-21 "trust me and you'll get MORE than enough" What an exercise of faith.
FULFILMENT - Jubilee Points To Jesus
Well, that's Freedom 50 as it was designed for Israel.
And, like all Old Testament symbols, it found fulfilment in the New Testament.
Jubilee.... Jubilee in Jesus.
Listen to words he spoke, recorded in Matthew 11.28:Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
In another passage that we don't have time to read, Hebrews 4, Jesus is called our "Sabbath" - Sabbath rest.
He is our rest. Jesus Christ takes us who are caught in bondage to the evil and decay that has an iron grip on creation; He takes us who are in slavery to sin, left with a debt we never, ever could repay; a debt that is sending us careening towards an eternity of darkness outside of the grace and care of God; He takes our spiritual IOU and writes "Paid in full" across the top in big, red letters -- the red of His blood sacrificed in our stead. Our Jubilee - our stand-in; taking our place and receiving divine punishment, the crushing attacks of evil, the darkness of God's abandonment -- our Saviour.
Satan is left with no rightful claim of ownership over us. We are set free.
We are brought back to an eternal home -- where there is a place for us, assured, a plot of land in the eternal Kingdom of God; there forever.
His children.
Destined to walk and talk with Him in the garden of a new Creation one day.... For sure!
Christ our Jubilee. Setting us free to face the future that even Monday morning will bring, with all its uncertainties. Set free to live knowing that His Spirit will go with us. Setting us free with the assurance that His loving care and protecting, guiding hand will never abandon us.
For the ancient Jews the reality of Jubilee meant sacrifice. Those holding the IOU's had to rip them up. Those who had taken over the fields had to give them back. It cost.
For Christ our Jubilee the cost was the greatest ever paid. The Son of God suffered poverty and humiliation his whole life, and then the supreme cost of His life in the hell-filled suffering on the cross, and descent into the grave.
For ancient Jews it demanded a huge effort to actually be willing to make that step of ripping up that IOU, and vacating the plot of land.
For Christ it meant the deliberate, love-filled step of coming to earth and being willing to face death head-on on its own turf, grave-turf and fighting the supreme fight of breaking free from the bonds of death.Breaking free in a way that sets us free.
Praise God for Jubilee -- Jesus Jubilee!
CHALLENGE - Jubilee Reluctance
But now something sad.
Do you know how often the Israelites celebrated Jubilee in its Old Testament form?
Did you know that there is no record of Jubilee ever being celebrated by Israel. Best indicators are that it functioned as a calendar marker, a significant period of time having passed in the nation's history -- like we may consider the century marker.
Jubilee was too hard for Israel.-too hard for them to let go of their ownership & control of slaves they had acquired, even if they were fellow Jews, brothers & sisters in the Covenant Kingdom community - too hard to simply tear up IOU's and allow debts to expire;
Jubilee. Never celebrated. And oh, what a tragedy that was.
A tragedy because the people lost sight of the great spiritual truths that Jubilee was meant to hammer home; lost sight that:all stand as slaves to God and had been fully freed by Him from Egypt all stand equally in need of His ongoing divine mercy & care all that they own belongs NOT to them, but to their Divine King
Now -
We could shake our heads at how stubborn and foolish these people of Israel were. But maybe instead we ought to fall in line beside Israel and admit that the whole concept of Jubilee remains equally strange and foreign to us.While it is a wonderful, freeing, life-restoring thing, consider --how easily do we accept the full Jubilee of Jesus?
As Christians we pray, "Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
You keep a person in bondage when you continue to hold and display a grudge, or resentment or hatred or desire for revenge against someone.
There is nothing more freeing than working towards that point of being able to say, "I forgive you." Brutally difficult sometimes. Especially when the offence has been close or deep.Maybe much more difficult than an ancient Jew having to rip up a million dollar IOU at jubilee, or giving back a piece of land. But it's part of Jubilee living in Jesus.
As Christians we say that our heavenly Father watches over us in such a way that not a hair falls from our head without His will and knowledge. The future is in His hands, we say. Yet how many of us are preoccupied with careers, and pension funds, and property acquisitions to try and "make it." We zoom around. The rat race controls us. Sabbath rest? Hardly.
And how many of us hang on to it tightly -- so much that we become offended to talk finances with others. It's even more secretive than sex.
Or we really hesitate to help someone out in totally free ways. We want to see financial statements of charities. We wonder if we'll get recognition. We want receipts. Or a say in how the money will be spent.
"All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give." That's the hymn we sing. But we balk at the thought of 10% off the top for the Kingdom.
Our value is in being a forgiven, adopted child of God. That's what our creeds say. Yet how often we judge each other by external, rigid standards; condemning those who don't quite match up. How often we try to control the way others live -- enslaving them.
Jubilee. In the Old Testament. And then fulfilled in Jesus.
It tells us that we are all equal. All one in the family of God. All equally forgiven. All equally dependant.
All with an eternal heritage in Christ, a heritage in the New Creation that is ours through Jesus and that no one can ever take away. Far more permanent and beautiful than those 10 or 20 acres in Canaan.
What riches.
What beauty.
In Israel the trumpet call announced that Jubilee was beginning. And a new season of life began for God's people.
May the Word of the Lord be that trumpet call today.
And through it may burdened down folk like you and I come to find real Sabbath rest, release, and new beginnings, living already now in the foretaste of our eternal inheritance.
To find it in the Jubilee of Jesus.