Luke 4:14-21 Jesus Brings a Better Year of Jubilee 1. He brings better effects 2. He brings more certain effects 3. He brings more lasting effects January 25, 2004 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: "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." Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."(NIV) Jesus talks about a new year in our reading for today. Quoting the words of Isaiah, he proclaims a new year--the year of the Lord's favor. Now if there's one thing we have to admit about new years, it's that very often they turn out quite a bit like the old year, don't they? They have great promise, but sometimes the promise goes unfulfilled. The Israelites had a year somewhat like that in the Old Testament. It was called the Year of Jubilee. We'll talk more about it in a moment, but for now let's just say that many times the year of Jubilee wasn't any different than any other year. And even if it was different, things eventually, gradually went back to the way they had been before. In our reading for today Jesus, quoting the words of Isaiah, proclaims a new year. He proclaims the year of the Lord's favor. The language that he uses--and in fact, some of the very phrases--are reminiscent of the Old Testament Year of Jubilee. But the year of Jubilee which Jesus brings is quite different from the Old Testament Year of Jubilee in a number of ways. First, it has better effects. Second, its effects are certain. Finally, its effects are lasting. 1. He brings better effects Our reading takes place early on in Jesus' ministry. He returns to his hometown of Nazareth, goes to the synagogue for worship, and--as was often the custom when a visiting teacher was in town--he is asked to read from the Old Testament, which would then be followed by an exposition on that portion of Scripture. The whole thing was done quite a bit like we do a sermon today. Jesus reads from the scroll of Isaiah, and he reads these words: "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." After finishing, Jesus sits down (as was the custom for a teacher to do while explaining the Scriptures) and says to the people, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." In other words, "I am the Messsiah. I am the one prophesied about in this reading--and in the entire Old Testament. I am the one who proclaims the year of the Lord’s favor." Now when the Israelites heard the phrase “the year of the Lord’s favor” they would very possibly have thought about the Old Testament “Year of Jubilee.” What exactly was this year of the Lord's favor, this year of Jubilee? We are introduced to it in Leviticus 25. There we read God's command that once every 50 years the Israelites were to declare a Year of Jubilee. On that year, on the Great Day of Atonement, after the sins of the Israelites had been placed on a goat, after the goat was released into the wilderness, symbolically taking the sins of the Israelites with it, after the sins of the Israelites had thus been forgiven, the trumpets were to sound, ushering in the Year of Jubilee. For those Israelites to whom the past years had not been kind, the year of Jubilee was very important. Because on that day not only were debts to be forgiven--as occurred every seven years, but also Israelite slaves were freed, and land was returned to the family that had originally been given it by God. So for the Israelite for whom things had been rough, if you were an Israelite who had been forced to sell some of your family’s land—land that may have belonged to the family not only for generations but for hundreds of year—if you had been forced to sell that land in order to survive, this year provided the opportunity to gain back the land you had lost. If your financial situation was so bad that you had been forced to sell yourself into slavery because you were unable to pay the debt you had accumulated, if you were that sort of Israelite, you looked forward to, you waited for the Year of Jubilee the same way a prisoner waits for and counts down the days until his release. The year of Jubilee was a way of leveling out the playing field, a way of getting you out of the hole and starting at zero again. The year provided a sort of restart, a do-over. Did you ever feel like you wished that you could have a do-over in your life? Wouldn’t it be nice if your debts were wiped clean, if the past was erased, if you could start from zero today? When it comes to finances, some people do that by declaring bankruptcy. But declaring bankruptcy doesn’t accomplish what the Year of Jubilee accomplished. Declaring bankruptcy may sort of start you at zero, but it doesn’t give you back what you have already lost. Neither does it truly wipe your record clean. As I understand it, declaring bankruptcy is something that stays on your record for a number of years—and even if it is finally erased from your record, you know better—that is, you know that you have some outstanding debts. Even if the law doesn’t acknowledge those debts, you know that they were never paid. But let’s stop talking about our need or desire for a financial Year of Jubilee. Let’s talk instead about our need for a spiritual Year of Jubilee. Because whatever hole you have dug for yourself financially, you’ve dug a far greater, a far deeper hole, you’ve accumulated a far more insurmountable debt spiritually. And as a result, you’ve lost the land that was once yours. Actually, Adam and Eve were the first to lose it. You see, they once owned some land. Adam and Eve lived in the Garden of Eden--ruled over it, really. They owned some land in paradise. They owned land where they would be able to live with God. But then--as we'll see/we saw in Bible class this morning--they fell into debt. They disobeyed God, and so that land was taken from them. They had lost their privilege of living in paradise. And worse yet, they had no way of regaining that land. They had no way of paying the debt. Because they had sinned, they would have to pay with their lives. And so they were captive, destined not for the year of the Lord's favor, but for the year--the eternity--of the Lord's disfavor, destined for hell. And we're no different. We too have disobeyed God. No, we didn't directly disobey God by eating forbidden fruit. We disobeyed God by saying forbidden, slanderous things. We disobeyed God by failing to forgive those who had harmed us. We disobeyed God by failing to place him first in everything--everything--that we did. And because we did that, we had lost our inheritance of heaven, we had fallen into debt, and we were oppressed, captive to our certain fate of eternal suffering in hell. But Jesus came to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Jesus came to proclaim that debts are forgiven. But instead of just declaring the debt erased, Jesus actually paid that debt for us. Jesus actually paid a righteous God, the God whom we owed. He did that by actually taking our sins upon himself. Peter writes, "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree" (1 Peter 2:24). So we know that our sins haven't simply been hidden, where they might one day be unearthed and brought to our attention again. We know that our sins aren't simply being ignored for the moment--in which case we would have to wonder if someday payment won't finally be demanded for them. We know that they have been forgiven, yes. And the reason our sins, the reason our debt has been forgiven, is because it has been paid. When you hear about the Old Testament Year of Jubilee, maybe it sounds pretty great to you. Wouldn't you love to be rid of that student loan? As a congregation, wouldn't we love to be rid of our mortgage on this building? But Jesus has brought us a better year of jubilee. He has canceled--paid, actually--the debt we owed to God. Because he has paid that debt, we who were captives are now freed. And because we are free, we can once again claim the land that once belonged to our ancestors. We can claim heaven. 2. He brings certain effects Not only does Jesus bring better effects than the Old Testament Year of Jubilee, but he also brings more certain effects. You see, while the Old Testament Year of Jubilee was commanded by God, that didn't always mean that it actually occurred. Human nature being what it is, it appears that when the year of Jubilee rolled around, people weren't always real excited about giving up some of the things they had gained over the past years. Even though God had made provisions in order to make things fair (the person who bought land 2 years before the Year of Jubilee, for instance, would pay less for it than the person who bought land 12 years before--because they would get much less use out of the land before they had to return it) you can imagine that people who were used to farming, say, 10 acres of land, weren't real excited about now being only able to farm 5 acres. And people who were owed debts certainly weren't excited about forgiving them. Perhaps at one time they had considered it, but as the debt grew larger, maybe they selfishly decided not to forgive it. So although the Year of Jubilee is commanded in Leviticus, as we search the rest of the Old Testament, we find no record of it even being observed. This isn't to say that certain individuals didn't observe it, but the compliance rate appears to have been quite a bit less than 100%. Therefore you really couldn't be certain of its effects. If you had sold some land in order to make it through a financial crisis, as the year of jubilee approached, you couldn't be certain of getting that land back. Sure, the words were on the books, but whether the individual holding your land would actually follow through on those words was an entirely different, uncertain matter. The year of Jubilee which Jesus declares, however, is absolutely certain. People sometimes try to portray the forgiveness of debts, our release from sin, as a little shaky. It might happen, it might not. It depends. And they feel it mostly depends on you. Countless people out there feel that way. When I ask people outside of this congregation if God is happy with them, almost all of them give this answer--or some variation of it--"Well, I don't think he's totally happy with any of us. I hope he's sort of happy with me, though. I mean, I'm tryin'." But Jesus said he came to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. He didn't come to proclaim the possibility of the Lord's favor. That is, he came to announce that God is at peace with us--right now. And if God sent Jesus to say that he is at peace with us, then we can be assured that God is at peace with us. As we read in Numbers, "God is not a man, that he should lie" (23:19). If God declares that he is going to bring a year of jubilee, if God declares that he has forgiven your debt, you can be sure that your debt has been forgiven--even if that debt has grown to be really large. If you've been oppressed by your sins, Jesus says that this is a new year. Release from those sins is here. You can be certain of it. 3. He brings lasting effects And not only can you be certain that the effects are true, you can be certain that they are lasting. I suppose it's kind of hard to say for sure--especially since it appears that the year of Jubilee was never real carefully observed--but it would appear that even if it were observed--that is, even if slaves were freed, debts forgiven, and land returned, if everything started over, eventually things would deteriorate again. That is, although the year of jubilee freed you, all it did was it started the race over. And if you had demonstrated a problem managing your money in the past, you would very likely have trouble managing it in the future. Indeed, within a few years you might be right back where you were before--imprisoned by debt, working land that was no longer yours. Finally, the Year of Jubilee was just that--a year. The next year it was back to business as usual--and you were on your own. Eventually if you'd look at the situation, you'd think that it felt an awful lot like the old year. Jesus didn't bring that kind of year of jubilee. Jesus doesn't merely get us back to zero and then leave us on our own. No, if Jesus had done that, we would soon be so far in debt again that we would despair of ever being able to get out. Indeed, it would seem to be a cruel joke to bring us back to zero so we could just hang our spiritual selves once again. Sure, Jesus parallels the terminology of the Old Testament year of jubilee when he says that he tells us that he has come to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. But things don't ever return to normal again once the year of the Lord's favor arrives. Because you see, Jesus could have just as well said that he is proclaiming the era of the Lord's favor. Or better yet, he could simply have said that he proclaims the Lord's favor. Period. Because the effects of this proclamation, the effects of Jesus' work are lasting. God has declared his favor to us because of Jesus' work. Not only is this certain because God is not a man, because God does not lie, but it is certain because Numbers also tells us that he is not a son of man, that he should change his mind. (23:19) So when God tells us that Jesus sacrificed himself for all sins "once for all" he means that our debt has been forgiven always. We will not be taken captive again by an unpaid debt. The land of heaven is always open to us. This morning I have declared to you the year of the Lord's favor, the year of jubilee. Its effects are wonderful. Your sins are forgiven and heaven is yours. It's certain. Because when I proclaim the year of the Lord's favor to you, I'm not speaking my words, but the Lord's words. And he does not lie. Finally, it's lasting. You won't wake up tomorrow and find that God's forgiveness was only available for or only applicable to a certain time. It's yours through Jesus--now and always. So sound the trumpets! The year of jubilee is here--for good! Amen.