Last weekend my town had its annual “Jubilee.” Its where arts and crafts vendors set up booths downtown on our square. People bring food trucks, churches bring prayer tents and dunk tanks. This year we even had death traps, I mean kids carnival rides.
But I’m not actually writing this about my town’s Jubilee. I’m going to take a moment to preface that I’m going to talk about scripture from the Old testament, Leviticus actually, and I know I’m already losing you as I write those words. However, if you bare with me, I promise you I won’t make it as boring as it sounds. Think you can handle it?
I’ve been reading through Leviticus since May of this year. I mean, talk about a difficult book to get through, geesh. However, here I am 4 months later, still pushing through. As I eagerly near the end, buried in a collage of temple instructions and sacrificial outlines, I stumble upon a jewel hidden in the dust. After four months in this book, the day before my town’s Jubilee, I arrive on chapter 25, subtitled, The Year of Jubilee. On Mount Sinai, God gives instructions to Moses for the people of Israel. The Lord appointed a “Sabbath year,” every seventh year. For six years, they could work the land and harvest crops but in the Sabbath year they must rest. Then after seven Sabbath years, forty-nine years in all, they must have a year of Jubilee. (I mean you ain’t got to bend my arm to get me to quit work for a year.)
Glancing over this passage, and attempting to apply it to modern day life, I could easily compare my year spent on the World Race as “the year of jubilee.” I mean, read this: “Set this year apart as holy, a time to proclaim freedom throughout the land for all who live there.” I mean how many times on the Race did we proclaim freedom throughout the land we were in? However, when looking closely, I cant deny the very next verse “It will be a jubilee year for you, when each of you may return to the land that belonged to your ancestors and return to your own clan.”
I press in, “be assured that I will send my blessing for you in the sixth year, so the land will produce crop large enough for three years. When you plant your fields in the eighth year, you will still be eating from the large crop of the sixth year. In fact, you will still be eating from that large crop when the new crop is harvested.”
So what does all of this Old Testament technical talk mean? What does farming have to do with me? For me,
It means the World Race was the sixth year, the year of toiling the land.
It means THIS is the year of jubilee!
To my fellow Racers,
the World Race will seem like the hardest but best year of your life, while your on it, and after you get home. We find ourselves constantly idolizing it, comparing ever moment to it, believing all else pales in comparison. Yes, we built community, we learned how to walk in freedom, we watched chains be broken and the captives set free. We experienced God in ways some people never will. We dove in, and we came home overflowing. Now, there are days that feel like we will never be there again, in that special place with God, with our people, or with ourselves.
But I need you to stop and read this truth again. Soak it in: “be assured that I will send my blessing for you in the sixth year, so the land will produce crop large enough for three years.”
The World Race was our sixth year. Please try and tell me that you didn’t receive enough in that year to last you for three years – the amount of growth we received, the amount of discipleship and wisdom we gathered, the amount of ministry we were a part of. Now, we’re in our Jubilee. Not only do we have three years of stored harvest “but you may eat whatever the land produces on its own during its Sabbath.” That means it’s not over. That means there is harvest waiting for you – without toil.
When I was first called home from the Race, I jumped into every ministry I saw available. I wanted to get plugged in and serve in every entity possible. I toiled. And I burned out – like a flaming meteor crashing into the earth. In a dark place, God found me. After blessing me with a season of rest, I asked what He wanted my season returning home to look like. He said “just be. Be love, and be loved.”
This is my year of rest – my year of jubilee.
There is fruit here, waiting to be found.
(I don’t think eating the harvest the land has provided means sitting around doing nothing, or removing yourself from all types of service or ministry. I think it means opening our eyes to what God has already done here, enjoying it, and praising Him for it. Not by our works, but by His. Not for our glory, but for His.)
Maybe you’re still reading this and have never been on the World Race. That’s okay! You still can apply this message to your life.
What was your sixth year?
What harvest have you found in your year of jubilee?
