Leviticus 25, Mark 1

Leviticus 25 is the Lord's commands about giving the land a rest every 7 years and having a year of Jubilee every 50 years. In the year of Jubilee all the land sold within the time frame goes back to the original family who had owned it. Sales price for land is calculated based upon the number of year left until the year of Jubilee, knowing that it will be going back to the original owner at that time. I find this interesting, especially since they hadn't settled in their land yet.

Mark 1 is the beginning of Jesus' ministry. It starts with John telling people to repent of their sins and then he would baptize them. I thought it was a little weird, to be honest, not being familiar with the Jewish culture. Why would he start a ritual of river dunking? So, good 'ole google to the rescue. I found out that it was based on the purification ritual from the priests when people made the required sacrifice and went from unclean to clean. Well, that's just what I was reading about in Leviticus. I wasn't excited about reading that, but I like that it's given me better understanding of other parts of scripture. So John is acting as a priest and cleansing people from their sins. Maybe this is why verse 14 says so matter of factly "After John was put in prison" as I can see where this would be very offensive to the Jewish people. The sons of Aaron were put to death for doing ceremonies they were not supposed to perform, after all.

The other story that was impactful to me was the calling of the disciples. They must have had some familiarity with Jesus because when he called out to them on a boat they immediately left their nets and followed him. This made me thing. When Jesus calls to me, do I drop everything that I am doing for something more important? Or do I tell him to wait a minute, I'm busy?