Jubilee was a very rare word. It was the Hebrew word for a ram's horn. The Jews were instructed to fashion a trumpet out of the horn of a wild ram, and this was to be so sacred that it was to be played only once every fifty years. Then there would be Jubilee. During Jubilee, three things would happen.

First, all debts were canceled. Anyone who had been living under bondage of debt would be freed. This expressed God's heart for the poor. ...

In the Jubilee Year, God says there will be a fresh start for those who are poor¨for those who are likely to be sitting on the sidelines. In case anybody missed the intent, or might try to circumvent it, or think it was just a matter of mechanics, God goes on: Do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your poor brother. Rather be open-handed and freely lend him whatever he needs. Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought. The year for canceling debts is near so that you show ill will toward your needy brother and give him nothing. He may then appeal to the Lord against you, and you will be found guilty of sin. Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart. Then, because of this, your God will bless you. ''Deuteronomy 15:7-10'' In the Jubilee Year, debt is forgiven.

The second thing that happens in the Jubilee Year is all prisoners are released. Now, in our day, this doesn't sound like good news, because we think of people who are in prison for really bad things, and we're not sure we would want them all to be released. In the Old Testament days, about the only thing they locked you up for was debt. For almost anything else, they would stone you. If you talked back to your mom and dad, they'd get the stones out. Jubilee Year meant the prisoners were going to go free.

Third, in the Jubilee Year, all the land was supposed to go back to its original owner. Now in the ancient day, far more than in our day when economics are much more complex, wealth was tied to land. If you were in a family where your dad or your grandfather had become sick, or done something wrong, or made a mistake, or been the victim of injustice and your family lost its ability to own land, that was it. You were out of luck. Jubilee meant hope for the poor.

You might wonder, what was the rationale for all of this" This is what God says: The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine, and you are but aliens and tenants. ''Leviticus 25:23'' ...

There is only one problem with the Jubilee Year. They never actually observed it. The best we can tell, it was never actually observed. ...

You know, God hasn't given up on this Jubilee idea yet. It's a good idea. It's God's idea. We can't pull it off ourselves, but it is going to happen. It's going to happen when Messiah comes. When Messiah comes, He will proclaim the Jubilee, and He will make it stick. For instance, the Prophet Isaiah wrote that the Messiah would say:

Israel had a Book. They called it the Tenakh¨the sacred writings were called the Tenakh. Say that word together out loud. When you get to the end of it, it's like you're clearing your throat. It's from three letters: T is for Torah; N is the Hebrew word for the prophets Nedi'im; K is for their word for writings Ketugim.

They had a Book that was unlike any other book that had existed before, because it contained truths and ideas that had never hit the world before. This Book said that instead of there being little tribal gods all over the place, there was one God, that this God is holy and just and loving and good, and that He created all things and plans on redeeming all things.

This Book, unlike any of the other mythologies or religions of the peoples around Israel, said that human existence is not just an endless cycle of repetition over and over and over again, but that it is a story.

This Book said that it is God's story, and that the story had a beginning - that God said: Let there be light and there was - that it had a middle - there was a fall and God has begun this work of redemption¨and that one day it will reach a climax. There's going to be an end to this story. There is something to look forward to.

This Book said that this God created human beings in His own image. That means that they have an indescribable splendor about them, and that they are accountable to this just and holy God. That means they carry an indescribable responsibility, and that they can now know how to live. Because of this Book, mankind is not stuck in darkness anymore. It is very hard to recapture what the world was like before this Book came to it. Those ideas changed the way that the world thinks and feels.

This Book so defined Israel that they called themselves simply The People of the Book. Other people are known for other things . . . for their power, for their armies, for their industry. Israel was a People of the Book. To help his or her child learn the Book was every parent's greatest responsibility. To be able to grow up and teach this Book ¨to become a rabbi¨that was the greatest ambition.

Let me give you an example to show you just how much they loved the Book: When a young man fell in love and wanted to be married to a young woman, in order to ascertain whether or not he was worthy of their daughter, the custom was that her family would give this prospective, wannabe groom a test on his knowledge of the Tenakh just to see if he deserved the bride. The more desirable the girl was considered to be, the more beautiful and intelligent she was, the more wealthy her family was and so on , the higher the score he had to get on the Tenakh. It was the only education system where, if you passed the test, you'd actually lose your Bachelor's Degree! I thought that was kind of funny.

The Israelites showed their reverence for this Book in a thousand different ways. They didn't have a Book with a cover like we do. It was all in scrolls. Genesis was written in a scroll. When the rabbis debated whether or not a book was sacred¨whether it belonged in the canon of sacred scripture¨they debated in particular about three books. They debated about Esther, because the word "God" is never mentioned in Esther; they debated about Ecclesiastes, because it expresses a rather cynical philosophy where there is no God; they debated about The Song of Solomon. If you wonder why they debated about that one, go home and read The Song of Solomon, if you're over eighteen and married.

They didn't ask: Should it be counted Scripture" What they did ask was: Does the scroll on which it is written render the hand unclean" This is a very picturesque, action¬oriented language. Here's what is behind their question. In order to eat, of course, you had to have clean hands. This was very important in Israel's system. When you were reading most scrolls or most writings, you could eat while you were reading. That was OK. Sometimes crumbs would get in the scroll, and then mice or rats might be attracted to it, and they would gnaw it or destroy it. Ordinarily, that would be OK , but not for the Book.

If a scroll were considered to be part of the Book Genesis, Exodus it was a record of the words of God, then you could not eat while you were reading it. That scroll had to be preserved and could not be lost. That scroll was precious. A sacred scroll "rendered the hand unclean." They were People of the Book who loved the Book.

Before there were kings in Israel, Moses told the people: When he "a potential king" takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the priests, who are the Levites. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his brothers and turn from the law to the right or to the left.
Deuteronomy 17:18-20

They loved this Book. They said: If we're going to have a king, he's got to write the Book down and read it each day. Think of how long that would take. They loved it so much that in Jesus' day an historian by the name of Josephus, writing to a Gentile audience, tried to explain the Jews' passion about the Book in this way: Time and again we have given practical proof of our reverence for our own scriptures. It is an instinct with every Jew, from the day of their birth to regard them as the decrees of God, to abide by them and, if need be, cheerfully die for them. Time and again the sight has been witnessed of prisoners enduring torture and death rather than utter a single word against them.

That's not exactly how Jesus laid it out. The Get Saved and Die Quick plan was not Option A. He said our mission is to be Kingdom Bearers, to pray: