Celebrate the Jubilee
Leviticus 25:8-12, 25, 35-36, 39-40, 47-48, 55
Or
Leviticus 25:8-12, 25, 35-40, 47-48, 55
International Sunday School Lesson
June 17, 2012
Commentary
By
Jed Greenough
Do you consider yourself a devout Christian? Assuming a positive answer I know you observe the ordinances of water baptism and communion but those things that applied to Israel of a legalistic nature no longer apply. But what if the Sabbath still applied to you, not just on one day a week, such as on Saturday as some still believe? The Sabbath, to oversimplify, is a three part observance: the one day in every seven, the one entire year in every seven and the one we are reading about today with the Jubilee. How would you do with that and how are those doing who still believe the Saturday Sabbath applies, in observing the other two aspects that complete the Sabbath?
Without taking into consideration the over complicated maze of changes that the rabbis applied to the Sabbath, God made clear what He expected and how He expected that these Sabbaths be observed. The people of Israel failed in those observances as the history of the Bible reveals and in so recording helps point the way to how we can only enter that Sabbath rest of God through Christ.
One of the things that remain in the past that still applies though is the character of God but let’s first look at a couple scenarios.
Let’s say you have a home that was built in 1962 and you have lived in it for 35 years having paid for it over the course of a 30 year mortgage but the rules of Jubilee are in affect and you must return it to the original owner’s family next year. Hope you have a plan!
For most of us this idea of the Jubilee and giving back things that we have called our own is foreign. Obviously to God whose ways were not and are not our ways He looks at these things we call ours differently.
Let’s look at homeownership from another viewpoint. Let’s say that the economy around the world is very bad and grows worse. People with money continue to grow in wealth but those that are without sink ever deeper into a developing pit, threatening to swallow them up with the cost of living.
In order to pay insurance, gasoline, and groceries the average person can no longer even aspire to homeownership but instead assumes they will have to rent. As people die and homes come on the market or as people lose them in foreclosure those with wealth buy them up and rent them out.
Let’s say that one person has built up a veritable empire of homes that they rent out spending years amassing them but then suddenly they must turn over a majority of those homes all at once with the remainder going back over the next few years. Once again the home has an owner who is not enslaved to anyone, they have been redeemed, and they have received liberty.
In today’s 24:9 and 10 we read in part, “Then have the trumpets sounded everywhere…Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.” Liberty is something that God obviously holds of great importance and as a result men benefit. He is not against success and He understands obviously in a fallen world that some succeed and others fall but He demonstrates to Israel that just as they were liberated from Pharaoh no man should permanently be without liberty because of any other man or misfortune.
For much of us the idea that “greed is good”, to quote Gordon Gekko of Wall Street fame, rules how we operate causing us to think that if we acquire much over the course of our working lives that someone who doesn’t do the same is somehow less and not our concern. This year of Jubilee idea given to Israel serves to remind us even now that this is not the case. The idea of Jubilee serves rather to show that everything is God’s (verse 23) and demonstrates what a holy God thinks of things tangible such as land and homes and things more intangible such as liberty.
Because of God’s grace and Christ’s sacrifice, the year of Jubilee may not apply to us any more than the other remaining “three parts” of the Sabbath but the principles which make up the Sabbath remain because God remains unchanged.
Based on what Christ and the Apostles revealed, does anyone think that God would have us take advantage of each other? How about that we should not take care of the poor? So much of what is described in the requirements of the Jubilee year speaks to fresh starts for those who had been unfortunate. Do you suppose God would still want that? God is not against success but rather permanent elevation over another and against any hope for a new beginning.
Just as God’s gift of grace through Christ came for our benefit so did these Sabbath rules benefit Israel. Whether they were the more commonly familiar weekly one, the Sabbath year every 7 or the one in sight today, all of them benefited Israel but they were not Israel’s Sabbaths but God’s.
Exodus 35, Leviticus 23, 25 and Deuteronomy 5 all say that the Sabbath is to the Lord. Leviticus 19:3, 30 and 26:2 say they are His Sabbaths. In Ezekiel 22, 23 and 44 we see that God calls them my Sabbaths.
Exodus 31:13-14a
“Say to the Israelites, ‘You must observe my Sabbaths. This will be a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the LORD, who makes you holy. “‘Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you…”
Exodus 31:16-17
The Israelites are to observe the Sabbath, celebrating it for the generations to come as a lasting covenant. It will be a sign between me and the Israelites forever, for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day he abstained from work and rested.’”
These Sabbaths were not done for Israel and Christ’s sacrifice was not simply done for men but rather for God to glorify Himself, to make it known to them that He is God, the God that created everything, the God that is holy, the God that provides both for slave and free, hunger and for rest.
The Israelites didn’t do well at remembering why the Sabbath rest was to be observed, how are we doing at remembering the sacrifice that gives us rest?
For Discussion:
1. Discuss how we think that we have earned things but that in fact God provides things and that all things are His.
2. The NIV notes in IS 20:12 that Israel’s observance of the Sabbath served as a sign that they were the Lord’s (note possessive) holy people.
3. Read and discuss Isaiah 58 concerning the Sabbath rules. By honoring the Sabbath the people did not go their own way and do as they pleased.
4. Discuss two things that Israel recognized in observing the different Sabbaths. One that God initially shows His mastery over all creation and two that God freed them from slavery. Discuss also how in “recognizing Christ we as Christians have done likewise in that Christ created us all and freed us from the ultimate slavery which is death.
5. Discuss how the world might say that a day of rest or a year of rest is the creation of man but that it would have a difficult time doing the same with regard to the rules of the Year of Jubilee.
6. Deuteronomy 5:14-15 talks of God’s mighty hand and an outstretched arm that delivered Israel from slavery, that they, their children, their slaves, their visiting foreigners and even their animals should observe the Sabbath because of this deliverance. Considering that and considering our deliverance through Christ compare our example.
7. Have people discuss aspects of the Sabbath that they admire.
8. After researching the requirements of Sabbath observance, discuss some of them such as debt forgiveness, resting of the land and observance among visiting foreigners.
9. What aspects of the Sabbath would complement worshiping Him in spirit and in truth?
Upcoming Adult Sunday School Class Commentaries
6-24-12: The Heart of the Law (Love God; Love People) Deuteronomy 10:12-22; 16:18-20
7-1-12: Samuel Administers Justice 1 Samuel 7:3-11, 15-17 or 1 Samuel 7:3-17
7-8-12: David Embodies God’s Justice 2 Samuel 23:1-7; 1 Chronicles 18:14
7-15-12: Solomon Judges With Wisdom and Justice 1 Kings 3:16-28; 2 Chronicles 9:8
Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment