With tomorrow being the beginning of yet another year I thought it would be appropriate to talk a little about the concept of Jubilee. Here is some info about Jubilee from Wikipedia.
a Jubilee year is mentioned to occur every fifty years, in which slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven and the mercies of God would be particularly manifest.
Jubilee was an ancient Jewish tradition. It mainly mentioned in the Old Testament in Leviticus but Jesus referred to it as the year of the Lord’s favor in Luke 4
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Jubilee is generally a very foreign concept in a capitalistic country such as ours but it was practiced often by the early Christians. Giving back is just not a part of capitalistic mentality. There are Christian organizations today that say we should celebrate Jubilee by cancelling the debt of poor nations. I tend to agree with them. It’s not always about money. Remember the old saying “it is better to give than to receive”; we all need to take that concept to heart.