Neighbor Groups: Seek JusticeSample

What About Jesus? 

The package yesterday was nasty and fake. Today, we’ll see how God has taken the tarnished package of injustice on our porch and restored it so that it reflects His good and righteous way. 

In Leviticus 25, God commands His people to practice a Sabbath year every seven years. It’s like the Sabbath they celebrated every seventh day, but on a massive scale. 

Instead of masters and servants working the fields to grow enough food to sell, store, and pay workers, the fields were left to grow what they would. Then, the masters, servants, immigrant workers, and animals were supposed to collect and eat the food for an entire year. 

Less work, more rest. Less taking, more giving. Less food storage, more reliance on God to level the playing field. 

Okay, now take that and multiply it seven times. Leviticus 25 goes on to describe a kind of super sabbath year—the Year of Jubilee. 

Every seventh sabbath year, this freedom-filled Year of Jubilee included setting slaves free and returning land to its original owners. In some cases, that meant the servants became owners of the very land they were working!

Jubilee put God’s view of restoring justice on display. 

Unfortunately, God’s people built systems to hoard and worship their own provision at the expense of people with less. Despite God’s carefully written law of freedom, the Israelites ended up captives by their own doing and were forced to live in exile in Babylon. 

Today, you’ll read Isaiah 61. It’s written as God’s people are living in exile. It begins:

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. ... Isaiah 61:1 NIV

It goes on to describe and declare a year of Jubilee that seemed to reach even further than the one described in Leviticus: sight for the blind, freedom for captives, comfort for mourners, and more. Why? Here’s God’s answer: 

“For I, the LORD, love justice …” Isaiah 61:8 NIV

Jesus loves justice, too. In Luke 4, Jesus walks the desert for 40 days, where He’s tempted to provide for Himself, protect Himself, and secure power for Himself. This is a callback to the Israelites’ 40 years of desert wandering during the time of Moses.

Unlike the Israelites, however, Jesus avoids self-salvation. In the next passage, He walks into His hometown church—on the Sabbath—goes to the front of the synagogue, takes a scroll, turns to Isaiah 61, and reads: 

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. … to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor … Isaiah 61:1-2 NIV

Put yourself in that room. Jesus, in humble confidence, rolls up the scroll, sits back down, and says to everyone who watched Him grow up, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21 NIV). 

Jesus essentially said the Year of Jubilee was here to finish the work of justice, but this time, it’s not a law you’ll follow—it’s God inhabiting His people. As followers of Jesus filled with His Spirit, we continue the work of bringing the Year of Jubilee to the world around us. 

Pray: Heavenly Father, You showed us what justice looks like through the person of Jesus. It’s difficult to understand the Year of Jubilee in today’s culture, but I ask that You use me to help bring it to the world around me. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Challenge: As you read God’s vision for justice from Leviticus and Luke, ask the Holy Spirit to show you what Jesus would reset in your life, community, country, and world to overcome injustice.