The year of Jubilee is probably the most radical social and economic idea in the entire Bible. Nothing is done on the 7th day. It was the Sabbath: No work, no planting, and no reaping. Nothing was done in the 7th year. It was called the Sabbatical year. The agricultural community took a year off and the land rested. (This became the basis upon which pastors and college professors were given a year off to refresh and renew.) Nothing was done in the year after the 7th Sabbatical year; after seven sabbatical years, the 50th year, there was to be a year of Jubilee. The year of Jubilee began at the Day of Atonement; the day that marked the national forgiveness & liberation from man’s sin debt. All indebtedness was forgiven; slaves were set free, land returned to its original owners. It was the day that marked a new beginning.

You may or may not know that verse 10, of Leviticus Chapter 25, is engraved on the Liberty bell now housed in Philadelphia. It says, “Proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.” The Liberty bell was cast in England by an order of the Pennsylvania Assembly to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the colony’s existence. The colony’s Assembly declared a “Year of Jubilee” in 1751, and commissioned a bell to be put in the Philadelphia State House. The Liberty Bell got its name from being rung at the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence on July 8, 1776.

Jesus said his purpose was to “preach deliverance to the captives… set at liberty those who are oppressed, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” He was referring to the year of Jubilee! In Christ you and I have a continual Jubilee! Our sins and debts that we accrue through the day to day lives we live are forgiven. We are set free, our debt has been paid. Every day is Jubilee day, a day to start over!