Sabbath – Sabbatical – Jubilee
The Sabbath, a day each week set aside for God’s people to stop, rest, delight, and worship, was given as a gift to us. God also called for a Sabbath rest for the land every seven years. Leviticus 25:3-5: “For six years sow your fields, and for six years prune your vineyards and gather their crops. But in the seventh year the land is to have a year of sabbath rest, a sabbath to the Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune your vineyards. Do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the grapes of your untended vines. The land is to have a year of rest.”
The Sabbath invites people to rest once a week. The Sabbatical year gave rest to their farmland once every seven years. Since God’s people did not plant during the Sabbatical year, they had to trust God. “Whatever the land yields during the sabbath year will be food for you – for yourself, your male and female servants, and the hired worker and temporary resident who live among you, as well as for your livestock and the wild animals in your land” (Leviticus 25:6-7).
All their needs were met by harvesting the Sabbatical year’s “volunteer” crop. God promised to take care of them – they would have enough until they harvested again in the eighth year. (See Leviticus 25:20-22) Just like Sabbath keeping, observing the Sabbatical year required trust in God.
God also gave the people the opportunity to celebrate a Super Sabbath called the Year of Jubilee. In Leviticus 25:9 Jubilee is described as the Sabbatical year after seven cycles of seven years. This 50th year was a time of celebration and rejoicing. A year of release from indebtedness and all types of bondage. (Leviticus 25:23-55) All prisoners and captives were set free, all slaves were released, all debts were forgiven, and all property was returned to its original owners.
During the year of Jubilee both the land and the people were able to find rest and delight. The Jubilee represented mercy, forgiveness, and freedom which was a foretaste of the mercy, forgiveness, and freedom we have in Jesus Christ who paid our debt on the cross. Through Jesus we are forgiven the debt caused by our sin. We are no longer in bondage, no longer slaves to sin. We are set free by Jesus so we can truly enter the rest God provides. This is a true delight – a Jubilee!
Jesus said, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). This rest grows from Sabbath to Sabbatical to Jubilee!
Kent Landhuis
Pastor of Teaching & Leadership
