Millennium 2000

The Jubilee Year 2000

As the Jubilee Year 2000 draws to a close we can reflect that it has been a time of extraordinary joy and great celebration. Has it also brought freedom from poverty for the poor, health for the sick, and liberty for captives and the oppressed?.

In the Old Testament, the Jubilee Year, the year after seven weeks of years, was the time to sound the trumpet of jubilee, [ yôbel - the ram’s horn from which we get our word ‘jubilee ‘] This was the Year of the Lord’s Favour, the time to proclaim liberty for all the people throughout the land, a time:

“when each of you shall return to his property, and each of you to his family.”

Leviticus 25: 8 - 10

The Jubilee Year proclaims the liberty from work, for the land was to remain fallow; liberty from debt, for the mortgage or debt was to be redeemed; liberty from enslavement, for Hebrew slaves were to be freed during the year. Land that had been lost was to be returned to the original owner. People who had left home for any reason, returned to their family, amidst great rejoicing and feasting, no doubt! The parable story of the return of the Prodigal Son may echo the feelings of such great homecomings! Thus, the balance between the weak and the strong, the rich and the poor was restored. No wonder there was much rejoicing!

When Jesus stands in the synagogue to read from the Prophet Isaiah:

“The Spirit of the Lord has been given to me,
for he has anointed me.
He has sent me to bring good news to the poor;
to proclaim liberty for captives
and to the blind new sight,
to set the downtrodden free
to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour.”

Christian people everywhere can still mark the coming millennium as a time of renewal, and rededication to the spirit of Jubilee in keeping with the gospel proclaimed.

Year of Jubilee 2000