It bears repeating that the CCO’s annual Jubilee conference draws its name from the important sabbath theme in Deuteronomy and, most clearly, Leviticus 25, where every fifty years—on the day of atonement, when sins are forgiven—the Jewish people were to enact social legislation that created a vastly renewed social order. From prison reform to debt relief, environmental care of land and animals to economic justice for the poor or oppressed, there was a radical restoration built into the culture. God cares about all areas of life and the details of what we call the Old Testament law speak to the Creator’s good desire for folk to live well, in a blessed flourishing often called shalom. The Year of Jubilee captures that God-given shalom beautifully—a built-in, regular social restoration where all of life is renewed in ways than can only be called gracious.

Nearly 1000 years later, give or take a century, the prophet, poet, and politico Isaiah spoke of this nearly forgotten Year of Jubilee, “the year of the Lord’s favor” or the “acceptable year of the Lord” as some put it. This “good news for the poor,” (Isaiah 61) is a call for a reformation of public policy and social practices. It is good news for all who believe and receive the great grace of a merciful God who stands by His covenant to people and planet.

Yet, almost another 1000 years on, the Lord Jesus Christ spoke his first public sermon, his inaugural address, written down in gospel black and white by a physician named Luke. There it is in the fourth chapter: the scroll is handed to Jesus, and He turns to the prophecy of Isaiah 61, who longed for the coming of the time of Jubilee. Jesus famously preaches one of the shortest sermons on record: in your hearing, this is fulfilled.

And so, those who organize this Pittsburgh conference have come to believe that Jesus is more than a savior of souls, more than a church-planting leader, more than a social reformer. He is the Christ, which means “the anointed one.” As it says in the Isaiah prophecy, the one Jesus says is about Himself, ““The Spirit of the Lord has anointed me…to announce good news… and the acceptable year of the Lord.” Jesus is the Jubilee bringer.

We can tell others of the fun and funny stuff that happens among college students at the Jubilee conference, and we can anticipate the thrill of hearing great communicators, the excitement of large-group worship, the importance of learning about how this Jubilee year might be an image pregnant with meaning for our daily lives. We can look forward to being inspired and challenged and, if the Spirit of the Lord anoints us as well, we can be witnesses to the work of Jubilee. We can, as they say, find what God is doing in the world and join Him there.

But we must be clear that it is Jesus who is the Christ. It is that Jesus the Nazarene, the first century Jew who lived, healed, taught, died and rose again who—to use the Colossians passage of this year’s conference theme—causes all things to hold together in Himself. All the Bible, all the creation, all the disciplines of the university, all the crying needs of the broken world disorder—all of it hangs together and can be understood in Christ.

The CCO’s Jubilee conference is a spectacular time of being energized and inspired to be the kinds of people God wants us to be, to find a Story that makes sense, to begin to develop and deepen a worldview that sees all things coherently. But mostly, it is a gathering to exalt Jesus Christ. He is the Jubilee.

We hope you will join us—and Him—at the Pittsburgh Convention Center February 19-21, 2010.