REST AND FREEDOM
Leviticus 25 and Luke 4
“Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:17-19)
When Adam disobeyed God the whole of Creation was affected. What was once to be a beneficial relationship now becomes a conflict and man will exploit the land in order to thrive. But in the end it will all come to nothing and only death awaits man.
The God of Creation taught Israel to cope with the realities of life by instituting rest for both man and land and arresting the downward cycle of the effect of sin by establishing the Year of Jubilee, a year when Jews who suffer under economic hardship will experience a reset—a chance to start all over again by the grace of God.
These laws were established under Moses, before the Jews stepped into the Promised Land. We are never told whether the people observed the Year of Jubilee; we are only told in the final years of the nation that they did not.
What is more important to us is to know the mind of God who taught us that we must care for our environment, that it is not an inexhaustible resource, and we must not allow misfortune to grow deep roots into society so that people cannot escape their fate. Sin and greed is destructive and we must do what we can to reduce its effects.
Even more important is that this same mind led him to do the necessary so that mankind has the opportunity to escape the deathly embrace of sin. He sent his Son to declare that the Year of Jubilee for mankind is now at hand, that we have the opportunity to see the truth and overcome the darkness, to be free from the curse of sin, and to return to God and be a part of his family.
Indeed God is good.
The question before us who now enjoy God’s Year of Jubilee is whether we will reconsider the principles behind those institutions that God established in the Jewish community and see whether we can adapt them into our lives in the 21st Century so that we can do well as individuals, as a community, and as the inhabitants of planet Earth.
“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.”