I’m fifty. FIFTY. This time last year, I thought I’d just breeze right on through my 50th birthday, but the truth is this half century mark has freaked me out a little. Chances are slim I’ll get another 50 years, so the whole mortality thing is there. In our youth- and fitness-crazed culture, I’m definitely an underdog at this point, and it’s downhill from here. So, in need of a serious reality check, I went to the place that is always sure to anchor me in the truth – the Bible.
I love the Bible. The actual WORD of GOD to US. Amazing. I love that the Scripture honors age and wisdom and gray hair….all of which I hope I’m accumulating. (Well, I could do without the grays.) God makes a big deal of the 50th year for his people. The 50 year mark on the national calendar was cause for a huge celebration. Debts were cancelled, slaves received their freedom, and all rejoiced and anticipated the Year of the Liberty, the year of Jubilee.
But this principle is also meant to be personally lived out – by all of us Christ followers. Isaiah said about himself and also prophetically about Christ:
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor(emphasis mine),
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified. Is. 61:1-3
This is the liberty that Christ offers – soul liberty. The ability to walk free and praise Him and to bring the Liberty we walk in to a hurting world. And it’s for this year and every year to come. By God’s amazing grace it is available to all of us, now, today. You don’t even have to wait to reach the 50 year mark. Isn’t it time to walk free? For ourselves and for those who are hurting and so desperately need to hear message of Jubilee?
They are everywhere; they are all around us. They are our relatives, friends, neighbors. They are across the street, in the grocery store, on the ball field. They are across the world in orphanages, sleeping in gutters, in prison. And they all need Liberty. They all need Him.
In this my year of Jubilee, I won’t freak out about wrinkles, sags or lost youth. I can’t trade age 50 for age 25, or erase the signs of aging that are inevitable, but I can trade my ashes for beauty (the internal kind that never fades), and my sometimes faint spirit for a spirit of praise. I can share with the poor, the brokenhearted and the captive the good news of Jesus. I will seek to be a small tree here in a small town living a big life so that I can reveal His splendor to a hurting world. I will dance for joy.
Come on, come dance with me.
This Blind Faith 