The Year of Jubilee

And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants...each of you shall return to his property...The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it securely. (Leviticus 25:10, 13, 19)

     The Year of Jubilee fell on each fiftieth year for the Israelites.  It followed the sabbatical year, the 49th year, a fallow year as each seventh year was a fallow year.  So in the Year of Jubilee the Israelites would be into their second straight fallow year - no planting of crops, hence no reaping of crops (except whatever the land produced of its own accord).  Not only that, but in this year those who had sold land and moved away were able to return to their land, the land of their fathers and grandfathers, and reclaim it.  There was payment, yes; but it was required to be fair payment.  No man in the nation of Israel was allowed to make another man destitute, to gobble up real estate at the expense of his brothers.  And God also promised that no one would starve, even if they didn't plant and harvest for two straight years.
     What a mind-blowing idea is the Year of Jubilee.  For so many reasons, it is an alien and objectionable thing.  From the perspective of a 21st century American, it is repugnant.  Grossly anti-capitalistic - nay, communistic!  Socialistic!  It smacks of Karl Marx and the grand Soviet experiment, with the bewildering caveat that it was commanded by God.
     But still, it is a strange and beautiful thing.  It is beautiful to me because of the picture of redemption and renewal.  This picture of redemption is already present in the fallow seventh year.  The seventh year is the year of rest, just as the seventh day was the day of rest for God, just as the seventh day of the week was the day of rest for the Israelites.  That command to rest, it's difficult.  It is hard because, though we want rest, we want it on our terms.  The problem of course is that when we seek rest on our own terms we simply overlook it and run ourselves into the ground.  God commanded rest not because it was an easy task, but because it was a difficult and foreign one.
    And so the Year of Jubilee is a gigantic rest.  It is rest upon rest; and not only that, it is liberty unwarranted.  Undeserved freedom: from indentured servitude, from poverty, from want.  The Year of Jubilee, even though it was relatively rare (50 years does not pass quickly), was an enormous promise.  An almost unbelievable promise for a destitute man.  A promise for freedom, liberty, redemption and reconciliation.  What an incredible picture of the Father's love.  What a difficult thing for us to grasp.  What a vital thing in which we must participate.