Daily Devotion: The Unending Year of Jubilee.

Bible Readings for Wednesday April 13th, 2011 – The 5th Week of Lent

*Click on each bible passage to expand the text.

Psalm 143

1. [A Psalm of David.] Hear my prayer, O LORD; give ear to my supplications in your faithfulness; answer me in your righteousness.
2. Do not enter into judgment with your servant, for no one living is righteous before you.
3. For the enemy has pursued me, crushing my life to the ground, making me sit in darkness like those long dead.
4. Therefore my spirit faints within me; my heart within me is appalled.
5. I remember the days of old, I think about all your deeds, I meditate on the works of your hands.
6. I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah
7. Answer me quickly, O LORD; my spirit fails. Do not hide your face from me, or I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.
8. Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning, for in you I put my trust. Teach me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.
9. Save me, O LORD, from my enemies; I have fled to you for refuge.
10. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Let your good spirit lead me on a level path.
11. For your name’s sake, O LORD, preserve my life. In your righteousness bring me out of trouble.
12. In your steadfast love cut off my enemies, and destroy all my adversaries, for I am your servant.

Jeremiah 32:1-9, 36-41

1. The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD in the tenth year of King Zedekiah of Judah, which was the eighteenth year of Nebuchadrezzar.
2. At that time the army of the king of Babylon was besieging Jerusalem, and the prophet Jeremiah was confined in the court of the guard that was in the palace of the king of Judah,
3. where King Zedekiah of Judah had confined him. Zedekiah had said, “Why do you prophesy and say: Thus says the LORD: I am going to give this city into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall take it;
4. King Zedekiah of Judah shall not escape out of the hands of the Chaldeans, but shall surely be given into the hands of the king of Babylon, and shall speak with him face to face and see him eye to eye;
5. and he shall take Zedekiah to Babylon, and there he shall remain until I attend to him, says the LORD; though you fight against the Chaldeans, you shall not succeed?”
6. Jeremiah said, The word of the LORD came to me:
7. Hanamel son of your uncle Shallum is going to come to you and say, “Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.”
8. Then my cousin Hanamel came to me in the court of the guard, in accordance with the word of the LORD, and said to me, “Buy my field that is at Anathoth in the land of Benjamin, for the right of possession and redemption is yours; buy it for yourself.” Then I knew that this was the word of the LORD.
9. And I bought the field at Anathoth from my cousin Hanamel, and weighed out the money to him, seventeen shekels of silver.
36. Now therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning this city of which you say, “It is being given into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence”:
37. See, I am going to gather them from all the lands to which I drove them in my anger and my wrath and in great indignation; I will bring them back to this place, and I will settle them in safety.
38. They shall be my people, and I will be their God.
39. I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me for all time, for their own good and the good of their children after them.
40. I will make an everlasting covenant with them, never to draw back from doing good to them; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they may not turn from me.
41. I will rejoice in doing good to them, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul.

Matthew 22:23-33

23. The same day some Sadducees came to him, saying there is no resurrection; and they asked him a question, saying,
24. “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies childless, his brother shall marry the widow, and raise up children for his brother.’
25. Now there were seven brothers among us; the first married, and died childless, leaving the widow to his brother.
26. The second did the same, so also the third, down to the seventh.
27. Last of all, the woman herself died.
28. In the resurrection, then, whose wife of the seven will she be? For all of them had married her.”
29. Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God.
30. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.
31. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God,
32. ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is God not of the dead, but of the living.”
33. And when the crowd heard it, they were astounded at his teaching.

• Teach me to do your will, for you are my God. Let your good spirit lead me on a level path. – Psalm 143:10
• Hanamel son of your uncle Shallum is going to come to you and say, “Buy my field that is at Anathoth, for the right of redemption by purchase is yours.” – Jeremiah 32:7
• ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is God not of the dead, but of the living.” – Matthew 22:32

… the right of redemption by purchase is the Lord’s!

According to Leviticus 25:25-28, if a man was to fall on hard times and their land fell into foreclosure or was sold for sake of financial hardship, then that man’s closest, eldest relative was bound to redeem the land back into the inheritance of the family by purchasing it back from the new title holder. If there was no next of kin, or if an agreement on price could not be reached, the Law of Moses required that the land should pass back into the possession of the family again at the Year of Jubilee, regardless of ability to pay.

The Year of Jubilee occurred at the end of every 49 year Rabbinical cycle. During Jubilee (the 50th year) all debts and obligation were forgiven and any held property reverted back to the family of the ancestral title-holders.

In the same sense, a similar drama has been played out for the spiritual heritage of mankind. We, too, fell on “hard times” in terms of righteousness and were unable to pay the wages of sin. Our spiritual righteousness, our inheritance of salvation was ransomed off to death, who seemed to be the title-holder in perpetuum.

However, we have hope in God! Like an elder next of kin, God has stepped in to exercise the right of redemption by purchase. God acted to redeem our inheritance back from death, the literal and spiritual title-holder of our salvation. This time and for all time, the price of our inheritance was redeemed back to us in the most final and irreversible way possible: paying the wages of sin through the price of God’s own love, death and blood.

The final redemption of our spiritual inheritance is the equivalent of an unending Year of Jubilee: our inheritance has been redeemed by God’s right of purchase regardless of our ability to pay!

We cannot pay the price to redeem our salvation, we cannot earn it. Only through the love and unmerited favor of God did we attain the right and title to our spiritual inheritance. Only through Grace do we know freedom from the fear of death.

The right of redemption through purchase has been exercised for all. Salvation is ours once more. Thanks be to God.