To those passing the cemetery, it must have seemed strange: the family gathered for my sister-in-law’s burial was singing a joyful song in her memory. It was one of her favorites, about the promised “Jubilee” of the coming kingdom at Christ’s return. Our hope was well-founded, since God’s Word promises an eternal rest from labors to those who have put their trust in Jesus.
There is no record that the people of Israel ever enjoyed the “Super-Sabbath” rest God commanded they observe every 50 years, as recorded in today’s reading. In fact, the prophet Jeremiah revealed that one of the reasons for the exile of the Jews to Babylon was that they had failed to observe the Sabbath years and the Jubilee (2 Chron. 36:20-21). In doing so, they had never enjoyed the blessing of rest that God had prepared for them, because they didn’t trust him to provide for them in the Sabbath years.
Working toward the “rest” of retirement drives many in their working years. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone could take a “sabbatical” year off every seven years? And what would it do for the poor in our society if every 50 years debts were canceled and their ancestral lands restored to them as God proposed? Such an arrangement would require a level of trust in God that few of us could live by. Yet trusting God to give us his grace for eternal salvation requires an even greater faith.
God’s promised rest begins when we cease from trying to earn our place in his kingdom by our own works in this life, and is complete when Jesus returns to give us eternal rest in the new heavens and earth. What a day of Jubilee that will be!
“Then I heard a voice from heaven say, ‘Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them’” Revelation 14:13 (NIV).
Jim Jensen
Extended Scripture: Leviticus 24–27
