The Jubilee Celebration: My Life-Changing Spiritual Renewal Experience

“Set this year [the fiftieth year of the Day of Atonement] apart as holy, a time to proclaim freedom throughout the land for all who live there. It will be a jubilee year for you…” (Leviticus 25:10-11NLT, bracket mine)

The Year of Jubilee – duhhh! So What?

The Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:8-55) was celebrated every 50th year with a blowing of trumpets. It was the holiest of all the Jewish festivals. All slaves of Israelites were freed. The land was not cultivated – rested. Furthermore, during this celebration the land will be restored to the original owner to whom it had been assigned in the original distribution.

But it ‘was’ celebrated – how about now? In what manner shall we celebrate Jubilee in the 21^st century? Since the celebration was during the Old Testament times, what principles of truth that we can observe today?

A Trumpet Blast

Mel Lawrenz writes, “The Hebrew word translated into English as ‘Jubilee’ literally means ‘the blowing of a trumpet’... if we stick with the original Hebrew meaning – a trumpet blast – it’s easy to remember that there are times in life when God had to get our attention by a trumpet blast in the ear. That’s what trumpets do: arrest attention. They pierce the noise. They dominate. God is still trying to get our attention. ‘Jubilee’, the ‘trumpet blast,’ is one way we can listen” (in Jubilee: A Season of Spiritual Renewal. Regal, 2008. Pg. 28-29)

FES Jubilee Celebration Experience

Fellowship of Evangelical Students (FES) Malaysia was celebrating the 50^th years of Christian student movement yesterday evening, 6^th October 2012. It was an arrested attention of ‘Trumpet Blast’ to remind us about God’s faithfulness for each generation of students in Malaysia. Staff workers, ex-staff workers, Exco leaders, grads, students, families and friends supporters etc. were there to witness how God had walk with them graciously faithful. I venture to say that it was the holiest of all festivals in my life (so far). God of the Jubilee was there to glorify Himself as we come to worship Him throughout the evening. The blow of shofar, the ram’s horn, with a wild, mournful sound that drifts in pitch and echoes during the opening moved my spirit to bow down in reverent toward God who is worthy of all praises. God made it happened!

Another sense of Jubilee celebration to me was that it reminded me, as the trumpet blow, how God had freed me from the bondage of ‘slavery to my sin’ through the precious Blood of Jesus Christ, His Son. The trumpet blast, I remembered the Word about the Calvary, the Cross and the Resurrection. The trumpet blast, I remembered how God mercifully had restored my relationship with Him. The trumpet blast, I remembered how privilege it is to be God’s children and be in heritage of what belongs to His. The trumpet blast, I remembered God of my life – especially, my student’s life – had been so wonderfully and sometime mysteriously kept my faith in Him. He never let me go. I’m hooked to His love and mercy. The trumpet blast! And it pierces my heart and soul. The trumpet blast!

Questions not Answered Properly – But I’m Satisfied Already

Since the Jubilee celebration, I learned and experience progressive life-changing spiritual renewal. “The Year of Jubilee”, writes Mel Lawrenz, “was to be, for the people, a way of remembering that everything could be different” – and it was and is to me now. This is my manner of celebrating the Old Testament Jubilee in the 21^st century: a life-changing spiritual renewal. God is above all these. He is the Renewer; I am renewed. Rejoice in the celebration is my respond in the God of the Jubilee. I’m spiritually renewed in the Lord.

The trumpet blast, the Jubilee is here – can you hear it?

“If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves;

But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.”

(Proverbs 29:18 The Message)

THINK BIG. START SMALL. GO DEEP.