Jubilee - 50th anniversary

50 year celebration like 50th year reign of Queen of England is called Jubilee. This word Jubilee come from Old Testament meaning 'blowing of ram's horn'.

When people of Israel were slaves in the land of Egypt,Lord appeared to their leader Moses in a burning bush. Lord said that He will deliver them from slavery and promised them with land flowing with milk and honey. On their exodus/journey, Lord gave His commandments to be followed in the promised land. Among them is the 'year of Jubilee'. It is described in Leviticus 25:10 as - Consecrate the 50th year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you.

You will find this verse in the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. The bell was ordered by Pennsylvania assembly to commemorate their 50th year celebration of Pennsylvania original constitution.

Liberty is the main idea behind these celebration. And it is a continuing theme from Judaism to Christianity. When Lord Jesus Christ started his ministry on this world, He did it by opening the scrolls and reading Isaiah 61. 'The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to bind the brokenhearted, to proclaim Liberty to the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.'


You may ask why I am talking about slavery when we live in a free and democratic country. We may not be under physical slavery, but we are slaves for our sin nature.

You may also ask why I am talking about slavery on 50th wedding anniversary celebration of my parents. I am going to talk about 3 characters for each of my parents. These characters are built by having deliverance from our sin nature.

Let me not show gender bias. So will start with my mother. Three character we find with her are 1. Caring 2. Talented 3. Prayerful

Caring:- I am writing this on mothers day. All mothers are special and they care for their children. That is why it is celebrated in a big way. But my mother is special. When I was working in Bangalore, there were many engineers from tamilnadu. Only person who got phone calls from his mother every other day was me. When my father was worried about the phone bills, she was worried about her children. She never had her eyes on gold, money, or self glory. She had total focus on her children and grandchildren. Her physical weakness never stopped her from doing that.

Talented:- My father says this always. Your mother needs no training or education, she knows things without that. She can talk about medicine without being a doctor. She solves math problems in no time. I was told she got full marks in maths all the time. She was very quick in all things she did. She will write 3 page letters to us within 3 minutes. Those letters had information, instruction, love, and concern. Some of those letters were very strong. I am very fortunate now because she can not type emails that quick. By the way- she learnt to send emails much before some of her age group people learnt to do it. She has been sending emails from 1999 onwards.


Prayerful:-When you talk with her cousins or childhood friends, they will say she was good looking, well dressed, and talented girl. She must have been a very confidence person. But I know her as a prayerful person. There is a day and night difference between confident person and prayerful person. Former put his trust on himself where as the later puts confidence on God. Former thinks high of himself, whereas the later understand depravity of men.

Change of event happened during the delivery of her first child. She felt her spirit leaving her body. And then she remembered Psalms 91 and prayed that. ' he shall call upon Me and I will answer him. I will be with him in times of trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With a long life will I bless him and show him My salvation.' It is almost 50 years since she has said that prayer and He is faithful to bless her with a long life.

Now my Father :- I find 3 character of him which i admire most. 1. Grateful 2. Hardworking 3. forgiving.

Grateful:- We live in a day and age where people expect more than what they deserve. They say - I have this education, I need to be treated better than that. Or I am from a great family and i demand better treatment. They murmur constantly for what they have. they walk around as if the world should serve them constantly. My father is just the opposite of that.

After my grandmother death, my grandfather gave money with a lady to provide food to my father and left for Srilanka. There were days when she did not provide. I asked him if he is angry with her. He said he is grateful for the food she provided. He is always thankful to his friends family who gave him cloths, his teacher who encouraged him to do engineering, MSP Raja in virudhunagar, C. Arumganayagam for job he had in the government, Fathers who helped him in business and the list goes on. He talks lots of profound things. One of them is 'Even the president of US can not think he is the president'. For world does not owe anything to us but we owe everything back to this world.

Hardworking:- Anybody who has visited his village will understand the hard work that he has put in. He has put lot of hard work in studies, sports, and business. We as children are enjoying the fruits of his efforts. We children still have to introduce ourselves as Periasamy children.

Forgiving:-
I find this as his greatest character. I was eight years old and my younger brother was 6 and we lived in Virudhunagar. When we were at school, suddenly schools will close for the polytechnic college strike. It will be a total chaos in the town and we will be escorted back home by college students. My father was a principle of it. Because of those strikes we had to move to Chennai.

I asked him about the Virudhunagar incident when he visited US. He is not bitter about it and is happy that it happened. When they meant it for bad, he considered it as good. Those trials gave him opportunity to work in Chennai. When he became little influential in Chennai, that Secretary came to visit him asking if he can stand for the election again. Appa encouraged him to stand again.

I have talked these great characters my parents have. These don't come naturally. Opposite of these are what we possess and we are slaves to those. Many don't forgive and live under slavery of bitterness. Many are slave to mental and physical weakness and they can not work hard. Many are slave to pride and they are never grateful.

There is a great need for all of us to come out of our own slavery that is stopping our success. You know what is holding your success. When we are out of those, all we need to do is believe.

Favorite book of my parents is 'power of positive thinking' by Normal Vincent Peale. He read it when he moved to Chennai and also after he retired. All that matters is belief and faith. This world is not about strong people. This world is not about rich people. This world is not about well educated people. It is about you. It is about you believing the dream. When you believe, you get to be the strong, rich and sophisticated person. It becomes a Jubilee. Thanks You. God Bless You.