Starting Off Strong
What if this new year, we actually did something new, by trying something very, very old?
When I think about entering a new year, my mind turns to the Year of Jubilee. Scripture describes this joyous occasion in Leviticus. Every forty-nine years, all debts were to be forgiven, all slaves were to be released from bondage, and everyone was to have the opportunity to return to their ancestral home, regaining ownership of their property. The Year of Jubilee essentially served as a reset button; it freed families from being trapped in cycles of debt and bondage. It applied the principles of forgiveness and redemption to something as practical as finances, rather than just relationships. In the Year of Jubilee, I see a holistic presentation of just how much our Lord cares about fully restoring those who suffer.
This was, at least, how God intended things to go. There is little evidence to suggest that Israel ever actually followed this divine instruction. Instead, Israel allowed the shackles of bondage, homelessness, and debt to pass from generation to generation. They never embraced the freedom and forgiveness God intended them to enjoy.
It is, unfortunately, too easy to draw parallels between Israel’s choice and America’s way of doing things. Depending on the state you live in, you might look forward to inheriting the debt of those who came before you—particularly that accrued trying to keep them alive in their final days. Even while we’re alive, medical debt presents a crippling burden to millions of Americans. Strangely, the same medical advances that make us debtors also cause us to live long enough that a Year of Jubilee would prove an incredible blessing even within a single generation.
Here, though, I feel I must acknowledge the voices of those who would condemn the idea of the Year of Jubilee for not being practical. It’s easy to dismiss God’s intent by hollering over how it’s not responsible to just forgive debt. We can readily claim that so much of what God says in his word doesn’t apply to our lives simply because it doesn’t make sense in our American context.
This, however, completely misses the point. We don’t have to follow the principles of the Year of Jubilee word-for-word in order to appreciate God’s intent behind the practice. What if after nearly five decades, we just decided that someone who consistently tried to pay their student loans, medical debt, or whatever financial burden had done enough, and simply called it good? What if we were simply willing to be that forgiving? What if we chose to care a bit less about how practical something was, and instead cared about whether it was godly?
As I understand it, a new year presents an opportunity for new thinking. What better chance to consider the problems facing us from a godly paradigm rather than an American one? What better chance to turn our minds toward—and keep them rooted to—only that which is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy? If we do that, we could actually let our Lord’s ways influence how we live more than our nation. I can’t think of a better way to start off 2025.