Leviticus 23-27
God gives instructions to Moses on Mount Sinai for observance of the Sabbath and the Year of Jubilee once they have entered the promised land. What did this mean to the Children of Israel? The ones who have been wandering homeless in the desert for forty years are told that when they enter the land they can build their houses, accumulate land, servants, build up fortunes, and at the end of fifty years, it all goes back as it was. Would they be grateful for what God had given them, Would they recognize that He was the giver of all. Would they acknowledge him as the giver of harvests and rain, peace and safety, fruitfulness and increase, the one who broke the bars of their imprisonment in Egypt? Or would they begin to think that it was their own efforts that brought about their prosperity.
Sabbath rest is something most of us don’t understand any more. It’s not just a matter of the blue laws, which prohibited commerce on Sunday, becoming extinct. We have lost the ability to rest. We are all continually multi-tasking; surfing the internet, communicating with our cellphones, twitter, skype, playing browser games with strangers around the globe or using one of the many social networking application. If we’re not doing that, we’re trying to find some way to obtain, organize or get rid of an accumulation of material possessions, or pursuing any of a thousand possible leisure options to keep ourselves amused. We’re doing anything to keep ourselves busy. What are we running from? What do we not want to face? Could it be our very own creator?
When God set forth the Sabbath rest and Year of Jubilee for the Israelites, it was intended to make them stop. Stop and rest as in the case of the Sabbath and stop and start all over again as in the case of the Year of Jubilee. In both cases, the outcome was that people were forced to recognize that life was not all of their doing or all about them. Rest, because that’s what God did on the seventh day after he created the world. Return everything to it’s original owner, because we are only sojourners after all. Both celebrations were to remind the Israelites and us of the supremacy and permanency of God as opposed to those of us for whom life is fleeting and all of our possessions only temporary.
God lays out for his people a road map of what it will look like if they are obedient, and what it will look like if they hostile. It’s interesting that God goes into much greater detail of what the punishment will be for disobedience. Prosperity for the Israelites will be open-ended. There is no limit to the blessing they could experience as God’s people. Punishment is cut and dried. There is a limitation to God’s patience, but not his covenant. ” ‘Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them or abhor them so as to destroy them completely, breaking my covenant with them. I am the LORD their God. But for their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the LORD.’ ” Leviticus 26:44-45 NIV
Whether or not the Children of Israel would be able to keep their part of the covenant remains to be seen. Can they accept the fact that they are custodians of God’s grace or will the Ancient of Days be relegated to someone they call on only in an emergency?