The Year of Jubilee

 

Leviticus 25:25 “If your brother becomes poor and sells part of his property, then his nearest redeemer shall come and redeem what his brother has sold. 26 If a man has no one to redeem it and then himself becomes prosperous and finds sufficient means to redeem it, 27 let him calculate the years since he sold it and pay back the balance to the man to whom he sold it, and then return to his property. 28 But if he does not have sufficient means to recover it, then what he sold shall remain in the hand of the buyer until the year of jubilee. In the jubilee it shall be released, and he shall return to his property.

In this chapter is a concept that is so alien that we can hardly wrap our heads around it.  It is a reminder to all that the land was God's land, given to His people. It is a plan of hope against endless poverty.  Since land, homes, and property change hands so often in our society, it is hard to imagine this working, but in the promised land, it all was distributed by lots and recorded.  God's plans are indeed greater than we could ever imagine, full of love and mercy.  May we stand in awe of Him.

Absolutely Nothing You Can Do

Leviticus 23:26 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 27 “Now on the tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. It shall be for you a time of holy convocation, and you shall afflict yourselves and present a food offering to the Lord. 28 And you shall not do any work on that very day, for it is a Day of Atonement, to make atonement for you before the Lord your God. 29 For whoever is not afflicted on that very day shall be cut off from his people. 30 And whoever does any work on that very day, that person I will destroy from among his people.

This chapter describes all the prescribed feasts of the year for God's people, Israel.  Each one has its reason and each one points to Christ.  What is overly emphasized here is that there was absolutely no work to be done. That coincides with the fact that there is absolutely nothing we can do to bring about our salvation and forgiveness. Jesus paid it all. It is His righteousness alone.

Not a Savage Party...

Leviticus 22:26 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 27 “When an ox or sheep or goat is born, it shall remain seven days with its mother, and from the eighth day on it shall be acceptable as a food offering to the Lord. 28 But you shall not kill an ox or a sheep and her young in one day. 29 And when you sacrifice a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord, you shall sacrifice it so that you may be accepted. 30 It shall be eaten on the same day; you shall leave none of it until morning: I am the Lord.

As we have seen repeatedly, life in Israel was to be far different than life had been in Egypt or in the land of Canaan they were inheriting.  Many of God's laws on purity had to do with making that distinction and with the sanctify of and respect for human life.  Pagan sacrifice and fertility rites often violated that. They were not worship like God is to be worshipped, but reckless and ruthless perversions involving abuse and disrespect.  When sacrifice was conducted in Israel the aftermath was to be a purity that prevailed.

...That You Should Be Mine

Leviticus 20: 22 “You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. 23 And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them. 24 But I have said to you, ‘You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples. 25 You shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean. You shall not make yourselves detestable by beast or by bird or by anything with which the ground crawls, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. 26 You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.

After listing all the penalties for breaking His laws, God says "Look, this is all about your being My people.  You represent Me to the world.  I'm cleaning out this land for you. Keep it clean for Me.  Keep your lives clean for Me." This defines our purpose in living. He has made a place for us and a purpose for us and purity for us.  We do this in response to what He has done for us.  It is part of the privilege of being His.

That Fruit Thing Sounds Nutty?

Leviticus 19:23 “When you come into the land and plant any kind of tree for food, then you shall regard its fruit as forbidden. Three years it shall be forbidden to you; it must not be eaten. 24 And in the fourth year all its fruit shall be holy, an offering of praise to the Lord. 25 But in the fifth year you may eat of its fruit, to increase its yield for you: I am the Lord your God. 26 “You shall not eat any flesh with the blood in it. You shall not interpret omens or tell fortunes. 27 You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. 28 You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the Lord.

At first glance this paragraph on fruit trees sounds strange, until you put it in context. Besides the following verses about eating blood and cutting oneself, this passage is surrounded by prohibitions against other practices involved in idol worship: immorality, prostitution, calling up the dead, etc. It was all about cleansing the land of the sins of the past and setting a new course distinguished from the way things had been.  There is a consistent pattern of cleansing, consecration, and then enjoying the fruits of the land. It sounds strange, but God has a reason.

Moral Purity

Leviticus 18:24 “Do not make yourselves unclean by any of these things, for by all these the nations I am driving out before you have become unclean, 25 and the land became unclean, so that I punished its iniquity, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you 27 (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), 28 lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you.

Just as certain animals were deemed clean or unclean according to their use in pagan worship, there were sexual practices which had been a part of the pagan peoples who had inhabited the promised land prior to the entrance of Israel. This chapter talks about adultery, incest, bestiality, homosexuality, and other sexual perversions which were (and are) not to be practiced.  As usual, God has a picturesque way of telling what will happen when these practices are welcomed: they would be "vomited out" of the land. May we heed this warning in our own culture.

Total Cleansing

 Leviticus 16:23 “Then Aaron shall come into the tent of meeting and shall take off the linen garments that he put on when he went into the Holy Place and shall leave them there. 24 And he shall bathe his body in water in a holy place and put on his garments and come out and offer his burnt offering and the burnt offering of the people and make atonement for himself and for the people. 25 And the fat of the sin offering he shall burn on the altar. 26 And he who lets the goat go to Azazel shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward he may come into the camp. 27 And the bull for the sin offering and the goat for the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the Holy Place, shall be carried outside the camp. Their skin and their flesh and their dung shall be burned up with fire. 28 And he who burns them shall wash his clothes and bathe his body in water, and afterward he may come into the camp.

The procedures for offerings on the Day of Atonement are fascinating.  After bringing sin offerings for himself, he then would bring sin and guilt offerings for the people. One goat was a consumed offering and the other sent out of the camp with the guilt of the people. Repeated washings and clean clothes were involved and some even had to be burned. The picture was that there was to be no sin left among them. But there was. They had to do it every year. The blood was insufficient, the cleansing incomplete.  Christ took care of these offerings and cleansings once for all. "Have you been to Jesus for the cleansing flood?"