• "Our Liturgy Proclaims the Freedom of Jubilee"
• Sermon for the Second Sunday after Christmas
• January 4, 2004
• The Reverend Stephen C. Scarlett

Isaiah 61, the Old Testament lesson that serves as the epistle today, is the passage Jesus read and preached about in his first act of public ministry in the synagogue in Nazareth. St. Luke describes how Jesus, just after he was baptized by John, went to the synagogue on the Sabbath Day "as was his custom." Jesus read Isaiah 61:

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; To preach the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke 4:18-19, NKJV-which is the LXX of Isaiah 61).

When Jesus finished reading, he said, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

The messianic proclamation of Isaiah 61 is clothed in the Old Testament concept of the Jubilee year. Every fiftieth year was to be a Jubilee year. Leviticus says, "You shall make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land...and proclaim liberty...to all its inhabitants" (25:9-10, NKJV).

In the Jubilee year, all land was to be returned to its original owner. All land belonged to the families of the tribes of Israel by right of inheritance. The land could not be sold. The most one could do was to lease property until the Jubilee year, when the property would be restored to its original owner. The Jubilee regulations prohibited the accumulation of vast estates by a few people.

Slaves were also released during the Jubilee year. One way a person could survive if he had become poor was to sell himself, his family and his labor to another. The Jubilee regulations limited the degree to which he could do this. All slaves and their families were to be set free in the Jubilee year. The Jubilee placed limits on the economic exploitation of people and provided a periodic fresh start for those who had fallen into debt or servitude.

However, it does not appear that the Jubilee year regulations were observed in any sustained way in Israel. The oppression of the poor by the rich, who had not returned property, canceled debts or set people free, was a chief complaint of the prophets. Thus, God, through Isaiah, promised that a day would come when the Messiah would fulfill the promise of the Jubilee year.

Isaiah 61 expands the Jubilee promise. It talks of opening the prison to those who are bound. This does not mean that every ax murderer would be set free. The prisons here would be debtors prisons, filled with those who had been exploited by economic activity ungoverned by Torah principles. Isaiah talks about recovery of sight for the blind, healing for the brokenhearted, joy for the mourners and "a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness"-transformations that call to mind the beatitudes and Magnificat.

When Jesus said, "Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing," he meant that his coming and his life, death and resurrection mark the fulfillment of the promise of the Jubilee year. Jesus has set us free from slavery to sin and death. He has cancelled the unpayable debt of sin that we owe to God. He has opened our blind eyes to see the truth. He has mended our broken hearts and given us the hope and joy of eternal life in place of the despair and mourning that come from life in this fallen world.

The Second Sunday after Christmas is always the first Sunday of the new year. I can't help but think that Isaiah 61 was chosen as the epistle on the first Sunday of the new year because the Jubilee year proclaimed by Jesus fulfills so many new year's aspirations.

The new year brings with it the hope that things will be new and better. It brings with it resolutions for new life and a desire for a fresh start. The failure of most resolutions reveals the basic human dilemma. Humanity is stuck in captivity. Humanity is oppressed by merciless tyrants called sin and death. As Romans says, "I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do" (7:19); and, "O wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (7:24).

The Jubilee proclaimed by Christ sets us free from this oppression. We greet the new year-not with vain resolutions-but with the knowledge that, in Christ, we are filled with the Spirit of genuine renewal. As 2 Corinthians says, "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new" (5:17, NKJV)

The liturgy proclaims the freedom of Jubilee. We are pardoned and delivered from sin. We are made clean by his body and washed by his blood. We are assured of God's favor and goodness towards us. We are heirs of the kingdom through hope. We are given grace to do the good works God has prepared for us to walk in. Yes, we have struggles. Yes, we have besetting temptations. But, by grace, we are making real progress in the struggle against sin. By grace, we are growing in wisdom and virtue. By grace we have the assurance of ultimate victory, of a final Jubilee on the Day of Resurrection.

The principles of the Jubilee year-the canceling of debts, the freeing of slaves-also remind us that we are called, as members of the body of Christ, to use our gifts and resources to help liberate others from captivity to sin and suffering. We are called to forgive the debt of those who have sinned against us just as Christ has forgiven the debt of our sin. We are called to bind up the brokenhearted, to comfort those who mourn, to open the eyes of the blind that they may see the truth.

The principles of the Jubilee year remind us that God places value on all people and has appointed a day of vengeance for those who afflict and enslave the people he has made in his image. We must never treat people as mere expenses on a financial statement or as means to achieve our own selfish ends. We must be liberators and not oppressors in our dealings with other.

As Leviticus says, "Make the trumpet to sound throughout all your land...and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants." And as Jesus said, "If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed" (John 8:36).