1st Sunday after Epiphany - Isaiah 61:1-3 - January 11, 2014
1) In
Leviticus 25 the Lord institutes every seventh year as a Sabbath year. The ground
was to lie fallow and anything that the fields and vines did produce could not
be harvested, only eaten directly from the source. The Sabbath year was to
allow the land to rest from man’s cultivation and to allow man to rest. The
cycle of Sabbath years would continue unbroken until seven Sabbath year cycles
were complete. The next year, the fiftieth year, was to be the Jubilee year.
The Lord says, “You shall cause the trumpet of the Jubilee to sound on the tenth day of
the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement you shall make the trumpet to sound
throughout all your land. You shall consecrate the fiftieth
year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its
inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his
possession, and each of you shall return to his family.” (Leviticus 25:9-10) The
Jubilee year followed the same paradigm as the Sabbath years. No sowing or
harvesting. Everyone lived off what the fields and vines naturally produced.
But the Jubilee expanded the idea of Sabbath rest. “Each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall
return to his family.” If anyone had sold their land to repay a debt, in
the fiftieth year the land reverted back to the original owners. This was
because the land was not to “be sold
permanently” (Leviticus 25:23)
as it belonged to the Lord. The Lord gave each family their portion of the Promised
Land during the years of Joshua, son of Nun. They could “sell” their land to
pay off debts, but in the fiftieth year, whether they had the ability to buy
the land back or not, the land was restored to the family which the Lord had
assigned to that plot. The Jubilee also released Israelites who had sold
themselves in servitude to repay debts but could not afford to fulfill their
debts. Debts were forgiven, slaves
released from their servitude and restored to their ancestral land. We ought
to also note that this all happened at as the trumpet sounded on the Day of
Atonement of the fiftieth year.
2) But this does not apply to us, for
we are not Hebrews living in the land of Israel. Nor are we to try to impose
the laws of Moses upon other nations, even our own, for these laws were not
intended for all mankind but to paint a shadowy portrait of the Messiah and His
work. This is what St. Paul means in Colossians
2:16-17 when he writes, “So let no one
judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or
sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ.”
The Jubilee year is not a model for our own lives. It is a model of Christ’s
life and ministry. This is most certain because Jesus applies this Jubilee year
to Himself in Luke 4. Jesus enters the synagogue at Nazareth, takes the Isaiah
scroll and reads from the prophet’s sixty-first chapter, the same words that we
heard read in the Old Testament lesson. “The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon
Me, Because the LORD has anointed Me To preach good tidings to the poor; He has
sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And the
opening of the prison to those who are bound; To proclaim the acceptable
year of the LORD.” (Isaiah 61:1-2)
Having read the prophet, Christ sits down to teach and says, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your
hearing.” (Luke 4:21)
3) The phrase Isaiah uses, and which Jesus applies about Himself is the same
phrase used in Leviticus 25 about the purpose of the Jubilee year. His ministry
will “proclaim liberty to the captives.”
But the Jubilee year is only a shadow of the substance that comes in Christ.
Christ does not institute a new Jubilee year where slaves go free and property
reverts back to its original owners. The kingdom of Jesus is a kingdom not of
this world. So Christ is not proclaiming liberty to prisoners, inmates, or
slaves in the world. He is preaching good tidings not to the poor in wealth but
the poor in spirit, those who are afflicted by their sins and burdened by
guilt. Christ comes to heal the brokenhearted. The broken hearts He heals and
consoles are not the broken hearts from love songs but those whose hearts are
broken by their sins in thought, word, and deed and contrite over those sins.
David teaches us this is Psalm 51:17, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, A broken and a contrite
heart -- These, O God, You will not despise.” The liberty He proclaims to
the captives is not financial peace and freedom but freedom from the captivity
of sin. And lest you think that we are making more of this than we ought, the
Greek word used for liberty or release is the same word that is often
translated “forgiveness.” Christ preaches release to the captives, that is,
forgiveness to those captive under the tyranny of Satan, their own sins and an
evil conscious.
4) Jesus
reads Isaiah and says, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:21)
This is what Jesus comes to do! He does not advent among mankind to burden them
with more laws and regulations on how to please God. He does not assume human
flesh so that He may be the new and improved Moses, laying down the law so that
we can just try harder to please God. St. Peter Himself admits in Acts 15:10
that the law was a yoke “that neither
our fathers nor we have been able to bear.” Nor does Jesus reveal Himself
to us as someone who seeks to punish us for our sins. He comes to preach good
tidings that in His death He makes atonement for all our sins. Jesus
inaugurates the new Jubilee year, a year that will go on until His second
coming. Every day we have is a gift to enjoy the benefits of repentance and
faith in the Gospel, that in Christ our sins are covered so that we are
released from the captivity to those sins, their guilt, and all the terrors of
the law which work to drive us to despair. In the Gospels we hear of Christ
freeing men from their sins. He tells the paralytic, “Son, be of good cheer; your sins
are forgiven you.” (Matthew 9:2)
He releases a man with an unclean spirit from the captivity of Satan’s
accusations by saying, “Be quiet, and
come out of him!” (Luke 4:35)
He heals sinners who are broken hearted over their sins, coming to Jesus in repentance.
When a woman begins to anoint Jesus’ feet with expensive perfume Jesus
explains, “Therefore I say to you, her
sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom
little is forgiven, the same loves little." Then He said to her, ‘Your
sins are forgiven.’” (Luke 7:47-48)
5) Such is the true Jubilee year of the Lord’s favor. Christ comes among His
people to forgive their sins, to give them what they truly need, not what they
think they need. The Jubilee Christ proclaimed in Nazareth and brought about
during His earthly ministry still goes on through the Office of the Holy
Ministry today and will go on until Christ returns. The ability to release
penitent sinners from the servitude of sin is given to the Apostles in John 20:23 when Jesus tells them, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are
forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” So
the Apostolic message is the message of Christ’s Jubilee year, that it still
advances on in spite of His ascension to the right hand of God the Father. His
mercy did not cease when His foot left that blessed stone on the Mount of
Olives. Nor did His power to release sinners from their sin and return them to
their Divine inheritance cease when the Apostles died, but it goes on in the
preaching of the Gospel through God’s called and ordained men. This is why we
preach continually of the forgiveness of sins, because we continually need the
forgiveness of sins. This is why we exhort everyone back to their baptisms, because
in baptism Christ washes you clean of sin and makes you His own. This is why we
preach you to the Lord’s Supper because there Christ feeds you with body and
blood that forgives your sins in a tangible, visible means.
6) This is the ministry of Christ. Just as the Israelites were released from
their financial debts on the fiftieth year, so we are released from the debt of
sin as often as we confess our sin and believe the Gospel. As the Israelites
regained their divinely appointed inheritance in the Jubilee year, so we regain
the inheritance that Adam and Eve lost for us in the Garden of Eden, so that
now the Triune God dwells in our hearts by faith. As the land and the
cultivators of the land were given the Jubilee year to rest from their labor
and rejoice in the good things the land brought forth, so we are given rest for
our weary souls in the Gospel that our sins are forgiven and no work is
necessary to earn God’s favor and forgiveness, before, during, or after the
absolution. As the Jubilee year began with the trumpet blast on the Day of
Atonement, and everyone was released at the Day of Atonement, so we are
released from Satan’s grasp and the tyranny of an evil conscience when we
believe that Christ’s atonement is for us and our salvation. This is the
acceptable year of the Lord, His Jubilee that releases from our servitude to
sin, you are no longer bound to drag it around with you in your thoughts, it is
absolved by Christ. His Jubilee Gospel heals the your heart broken by sin and
its effects, for He speaks tenderly to you in love and reminds you that in all
things He will provide daily bread for body and soul. Today is this fulfilled
in your hearing once again. Be of good cheer, children of God. Your sins are
forgiven. Go in peace. Amen.