Leviticus 25:1-13 The cross means… Jubilee!

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Hey, Hope Zippy the fox here. And guess what? We're smack in the middle of the Israelite camp. You know, God's people in the desert. Now the grown ups at All Saints totly have been looking at a book called Leviticus.

A bit of a mouthful, but it's packed with how God's people should live. And it points to something huge that Jesus is going to do way later on. Anyway, stick with me. Now then, who's this? Here, there little man.

Are you alright? Not really. My family's had a really tough time. We've had to sell our land, even our home. It's all gone.

God gave it to us, but there's no way we can buy it back. It'll always be too expensive. Where's the hope? Oh Amos, that's really hard. But you know, God has made a plan.

Do you remember the Sabbath day? You know, every seven days, no work and just rest in time with God. Yeah, we love the Sabbath. Mum makes special bread and there's no chores. It's great.

Exactly. Well guess what? God didn't stop there. Every seven years there's a Sabbath year. Yeah, every seven years we get a whole year off.

No planting, no harvesting. The land gets a rest. We all do. God's made sure we've got enough. Exactly.

A little rest every seven years. A proper rest. But there's one more thing. Something massive, you see. What is it?

After seven Sabbath years, that's 49 years. For those of you who do maths. In the 50th year there comes a year of jubilee. It all starts with a trumpet blast on the day of atonement at Yom Kippur. Then when the trumpet sounds.

Boom. A once in a lifetime reset button gets pressed. Wait, reset like land and houses back? Exactly. Land goes back to the family that God gave it to and people go free.

It's joy, it's justice. It's jubilee.

Yeah, just look at it. Amos and his family get to go home. The land got gave back to them, back where it belongs. God knew that life would get tough sometimes and so he built in second chances. Jubilee is like the biggest let's all start again ever.

Oh, that's amazing, Zippy. Like, God really does take care of us. I love that he does. Do you know, one day Jesus would come and he'd bring Jubilee to the whole world. Freedom and forgiveness and a fresh start for everyone.

But I'll let Ben tell you all about that. Anyway, that's enough of me wittering on. I'll see you soon. Bye. How cool is that?

Thank you so much to our furry friends for helping us there to think about what it meant to go through Jubilee. You can imagine how amazing it would be as you went back to your land and to your home and you went for the first time back into that old house that you'd had to sell. It would have been wonderful. It would have been freeing. It would have been great.

And here's the thing, the book of Leviticus speaks about them then, but it always speaks about more, doesn't it? It always speaks about what Jesus is doing. It speaks about a second start. Not just the second start in all of our lives that we get that when we come to know Jesus, but even more than that, it speaks about a second start and true rest for this world as well. And we're going to see that in just a few moments time.

Great. Well, we're thinking about Leviticus, we're thinking about Jubilee. We saw that each week they would get a rest day. Every seven years, they would get a rest year. And then every 49 years, the 50th year becomes this jubilee year, when land goes back to the people it should belong to.

When things get right and things are put right and freedom reigns and rest is seen. But did you see where it all starts? It all starts, we're told, verse 10. Sorry, end of verse 9. On the day of atonement, sound the trumpet throughout the land.

Now, what's that all about? Phil talked to us about the day of atonement a few weeks ago. It's the day when God's people and God are put right. And it all happens in a tabernacle. Here is a model of the tabernacle.

Now, what I've done is I've purposefully taken a lot of it out, because otherwise it would fall over when I hold it up and show it to you. But here, this place here outside, is the altar. It's the place where sacrifices happened. And what would happen is that an animal would die and it'd be very sad, and they would die instead of the people of God. So they'd take the place.

And what would happen is there would be a sacrifice that would happen here. And then the priest would go in, into this bit here, which was the holy place and the most holy place where God himself dwelt. Now, I want you to imagine that you were stood outside and you were watching this. What you would see is you'd see the sacrifice, and then there'd be a little bit of time when the priest would disappear and he would disappear inside and you wouldn't see anything for a time. And then after a little while, the priest would change into his, his royal robes and he would come outside and atonement putting right would have happened.

And as he comes outside, what he would do is there would be a big trumpet and it would announce do you know what? God and his people are right and they're together again like that. It's amazing. God's people are back and right together. And the trumpet says it now, on the 49th year, as it gets to the end, what happens?

The priest goes inside, he comes back out. And then throughout the land we're told there's to be a loud trumpet blast, really loud. Everybody knows we're free, we can go home, we can go back to the place that we're from. And the trumpet has spoken. Now that's important because in the Bible what we see is that my little model of a tabernacle here is a model of a model.

You see this is a model of what was built by the Israelites. Okay? But in Hebrews we're told that this is a bit of a model of heaven and earth. In other words, Jesus is a bit like this. He was crucified and we saw it.

That's a bit like the, the altar here, the cross. But then he went up to heaven. He disappeared out of sight. And do you know what the next time we see Jesus is when he will be coming down from heaven robed in his royal garments. And then do you know what we'll hear?

We will hear a trumpet. Because that will be the day when all the wrongs of this world will become undone. When the right people will get the things that they own. When all of the injustice of this world will be undone. When the world itself will be at rest.

From the frustration that the book of Romans talks about it being in where we don't battle with sin anymore. I for one can't wait for that day. Now why does this all matter? Well, I don't know about you, but sometimes I look on the news and there's all sorts of things that just make us sad. Sometimes grown ups, they worry about what the future is going to hold.

How's it all going to end? Nasty people doing nasty things, A breaking of the environment. What's going to happen to this world? How is it going to be? And sometimes those things can feel very scary to us.

But the book of Leviticus tells us how this world is going to end. The book of Leviticus tells us that with God the saddest part of the story is never the end of the story. Why? Because the book of Leviticus tells us the world will end with jubilee, with Jesus coming back with the sound of the trumpets, with the restoration of all things good, with the gift of God being restored to his people.

So if you're worried about this world, then we can pray. We can trust Jesus. The main thing we need to listen for the trumpet.

Let's pray. Father God, thank you so much that you are on the throne of this world. Thank you. That what is ahead of us is freedom and life and goodness and a restoration of good things. Help us to trust that even when our world feels dark and difficult.

Thank you for our time in Leviticus. Help us to love you more as we see your truth in these words. Amen.