Empire Remixed

by Jake Aikenhead

The Sabbatical Year and the Year of Jubilee are impressive institutions in the socio-economic life of Israel, but they aren’t regular topics of conversation during Advent. And this is, ostensibly, with good reason. It would seem that even the most creative theologians might be hard pressed to establish a connection between Israel’s socio-economic life and our expectant awaiting of the birth of Jesus.

But a faithful reading of the Gospel of Luke – the gospel we turn to for an in depth account of our Saviour’s unorthodox birth – suggests otherwise. In fact, in the Gospel of Luke we find that there is a very precise connection between the laws of Sabbath and jubilee and the child for whom there was no room at the inn. Luke tells us that Jesus is the agent of a new kind of jubilee.

For us to see this connection properly, however, we’ll need to look briefly at the Sabbatical Year and the Year of Jubilee. Read the rest of this entry »