Jubilee

I love to laugh. I love those moments where joy bubbles over and creates a new state of being, a place where we transcend mundane moments and enter into something we don’t understand. I love laughing until I cry; I love making people laugh until they cry. But I have struggled to reconcile this celebratory feeling, this pop-the-champagne way of living, with my deep desire for justice in the world. They have often felt at odds with each other – a deep darkness meeting an effervescent hope. I have wrestled with this since becoming an adult, and it wasn’t until I did a deep dive into this word – jubilee – that I began to see the connections. 

Jubilee is starting fresh; it is beginning again. This will be one of my words every seven years, and I hadn’t thought about its meaning much until now. I originally loved the word because it sounded good, and it spoke to my love for justice. In the Bible, the year of Jubilee was the time when everyone in Israel had the right to take back their ancestral land. It was a time of rest and restitution. Even if one had to sell their land in the last 50 years because they had hit hard times, all of that land was restored to its original keepers during the year of jubilee. Jubilee is about going home again.

I never thought about it this way, but I think that underneath my deep desire for justice is an even deeper desire for home. Injustice is a state of unbelonging, of not knowing if you’re safe, or of being sure that you are unsafe. Justice, then, is knowing that you are safe, that you belong and are made whole in the world around you. Justice is about creating a home. I crave this kind of justice for myself, for the people I love, and for those who have no place to call their own. It is less about the physical space of a house, and more about the opportunity to know you can plant your roots somewhere and settle in, knowing that you are loved and will not be taken advantage of. Millions of people in the world don’t have this, but I wonder, now – maybe God also wants to give this to me. 

Jubilee is the year of the Lord’s favor. It is an intentional creation of space, within time and within the land, that allows for God’s goodness to shine. It is the deep soil where longterm joy can be cultivated. Jubilee encapsulates everything I most care about: deep belonging, warmth, light, rest – and, yes, justice. But justice, here, is born out of the goodness of belonging, not the other way around. Jubilee is not violent. Jubilee is not argumentative. Jubilee is justice God’s way; allowing every person to go back to the space and people they love. Jubilee is deeper than justice. Jubilee is the bedrock and foundation of home, and it brings color back into a sometimes colorless world.

This, to me, changes everything. If justice is not only for the sake of equality, but if it is tied forever to our true and lasting home, then that allows us a vision for what cultivating true justice can look like. It is warm and inviting and vibrant. It is about holding space and creating places of restoration. It isn’t violent or destructive – it is peace in it’s truest form, restoring everything that was lost. This is, in many ways, different than the world’s view of justice. Justice these days seems to feed on anger and resentment, fostering hate for the other and welcoming violent rhetoric. While the idea is good, the practice can become spiteful and full of comtempt. Jubilee goes deeper than shallow feelings of offense; it actually gives back the land, restores hope, and cultivates livelihood and exuberance. It is settled and clear; it is practical and gritty. But this, I think, is why this word will forever be paired with joy. It isn’t dark; it isn’t fearful; it isn’t bitter. Jubilee, done God’s way, is full of abundance. It elicits laughter. Justice and joy need not be mutually exclusive. In God’s fresh start of jubilee, they are one and the same.