An event -- a person -- that fulfills all things

By Patricia Kasten
Compass Associate Editor

How can a person be an event?

A jubilee is a special event - marking a momentous celebration, an anniversary or a special time in history. And, after Easter, no event on our faith calendar is more special than the celebration of Christmas, when we mark the coming of God as a human being. Truly a jubilee event.

But, more than that; Jesus isn't just part of the event - Jesus is the event. In fact, as in a recent Christian song, "Jesus is our jubilee."

The word "jubilee" comes to us from the ancient Hebrew word yobel which meant "a ram's horn" which was blown on the year of jubilee - better known as "the year of release."

In ancient Israel, this jubilee year took place every 50th year. It was a time when no farm work was done; debts were cancelled; any property that had been sold to pay off bills was returned to its original owner; and anyone who had been sold into slavery was released.

"The design of the Jubilee year," according to The Catholic Encyclopedia, "is that those of the people of God who, through poverty or other adverse circumstances, had forfeited their personal liberty or property to their fellow brethren, should have their debts forgiven ... and be restored to their families and inheritance as freely and fully as God ... forgave the debts of his people and restored them to perfect fellowship with himself ... "

This return to fellowship with God was the reason Jesus - "God with us" - was born. Jesus - whose name means "God saves," came to release us from anything that kept us from our true inheritance as children of God.

We can see the image of jubilee in Luke's words of Jesus in the Nazareth synagogue, at the very start of his ministry: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me; therefore he has anointed me to bring glad tiding to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free ..." (Lk 4:18-19).

These words combine quotes from chapters 58 and 61 in the last part of the Book of Isaiah. They speak of a time shortly after Israel's return from slavery in Babylon, but hint at a moment beyond time, when the perfect Jerusalem and the perfect Temple will exist in the presence of God.

And yet, since the quotes from Isaiah are not in the exact order of a Torah scroll from Jesus' time, we know the evangelist Luke was trying to tell us something specific about Jesus' mission - in this case, the fulfillment of God's promise of salvation. This theme of release, of perfect redemption, is carried on throughout the Gospels. Thus, as Fr. Robert Karris, OFM, says, the image of the jubilee evoked by Jesus' words in Luke "underscored restoration, (a new) beginning, faith in the sovereignty of God, and conviction that the structures of social and economic life must reflect God's reign."

Through his earthly life, Jesus fulfilled God's promises from Scripture: he restored people to sight, wellness, even life. For these people, these events became jubilee events. But these miracles - happening only in the lives of a few people like Bartimeus or the woman caught in adultery - were merely signs of what God was preparing to do for all creation.

As Pope John Paul told us at the beginning of the jubilee for the 2,000 anniversary of Jesus' birth: "In (Jesus) all things come into their own ... Jesus Christ is the recapitulation of everything and at the same time the fulfillment of all things in God ... " (Tertio Millennio Adveniente, 6).

A jubilee is usually an event - and the word event comes from an old French term meaning "to come." At Christmas, we remember the jubilee event that was the coming of "God with us."

But Christmas is more than one event, more even than a promise. It is a person, the one who is with us always - a one through whom the greatest events imaginable take place in our world and in each of our individual lives. God is with us. The promise has been fulfilled, and continues to be fulfilled in each of our lives until the final coming.

The angels blew trumpets over Bethlehem, the carols say. The priests blew the ram's horns that brought Jericho's walls tumbling down - and marked the entry of God's people into the Promised Land. Brass horns highlight the liturgical music of Christmas. The archangel's trumpet will herald the second coming. And all these notes are focused on one jubilee - the jubilee that has come among us: Emmanuel.