Time to Celebrate: Jubilee Bead Cycle tutorial (plus bracelet craft) for the High Holidays

Often I have ideas brewing in my head for a long time. I've been thinking about the Jubilee Cycle for quite a while now, but when I saw this How the Church tells time post pinned on Pinterest, it immediately sparked the idea to make a floor or coffee-table sized Jubilee Bead Cycle.

In Bible terms, years are measured in seven year blocks called weeks. The seventh year in each block was to be a Sabbath for the land - it was not to be ploughed or planted. Seven lots of seven year blocks (49 years) was followed by a 50th year known as the Jubilee (Yovel in Hebrew). This was a complete cycle. The Jubilee was supposed to see any slaves go free and land sold during the 49 years return to the rightful owners as it was granted to by God after the conquest of Canaan. It is also a picture of what will happen on the New Earth.

I think this could be an appropriate craft for either Rosh Hashanah / Feast of Trumpets or Yom Kippur / Day of Atonement. The civil New Year starts on Rosh Hashanah, but a Jubilee Year is not formally announced until ten days later on Yom Kippur. And whilst Yom Kippur is generally not a fun holiday but rather a solemn fast, when a Jubilee is announced, it cannot help but be celebrated - slaves were to go free, land and property returned to the original owners as given by God, and families were reunited. I believe Jesus is coming again to announce the ultimate Jubilee.

How to make a Jubilee / Yovel Bead Cycle

I bought a large pack of 25mm round wooden beads - you will need 50.

Paint seven beads in one colour to represent the Sabbath years and paint one bead in another colour to represent the Jubilee year. I threaded them onto skewers and cut a 'v' shape into cardboard boxes to lay them in whilst painting and drying them. Round things can be tricky to paint and dry without getting them stuck or the paint uneven.

You can use polish or varnish to seal your beads if you like. I chose to leave mine so I can write Bible references on them if I want to later (which I have talked about at the end of this post).

Once dry, thread them on to a long piece of 2mm elastic in the following order:

• 6 plain wooden beads, 1 painted Sabbath bead
• 6 plain wooden beads, 1 painted Sabbath bead
• 6 plain wooden beads, 1 painted Sabbath bead
• 6 plain wooden beads, 1 painted Sabbath bead
• 6 plain wooden beads, 1 painted Sabbath bead
• 6 plain wooden beads, 1 painted Sabbath bead
• 6 plain wooden beads, 1 painted Sabbath bead
• 1 painted Jubilee bead

Tie the ends of the elastic together and trim.

Finished!

Of course, we are also planning to make a quiet book page out of this idea too... 

So we have made a practice one already.

Some people believe that the Jubilee year was actually the same year as the last year of the 49th year, or it overlaps the last half of the 49th year and the first half or the 1st year. They think the Jubilee disrupts the seven year Sabbath cycle and interpret Jesus' parable of the fig tree to relate to Israel in the last days and the dating of the last seven years of Daniel's prophecy which they believe have been cut of and delayed until just prior to Jesus' second coming.

I disagree because:

1. The Bible specifically says "the fiftieth year"
2. Pentecost follows a similar pattern, with the celebration occurring on the fiftieth day following a period of seven weeks
3. The meaning of the word Jubilee relates to a period of 50 years. The Queen Elizabeth's Golden Jubilee did not mean she had been ruling for 49 years!
4. Jesus' parable of the fig tree related to the dating of the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, which I hope to discuss in further detail in a future post
5. The last week of Daniel's prophecy was not cut off, it was an accurate prophecy of the Death of Jesus our Messiah (who was the one cut off - not the week). This is the historical view of this prophecy if you want to look it up in the mean time, but it should also be the topic of a future post.
6. Including a fiftieth year into a cycle also rounds the seven year cycles up so that they continue to fit nicely into thousand year blocks, ensuring that sets of years remain fitting within a millennium. It is also consistent with the Millennial Day Theory where each day of creation represents a millennium of Earth's history. As Peter says - one day is like a thousand years to the LORD. It allows even measurements of years throughout the ages (an age is 2000 years). There are three ages, then the Sabbath millennium. 
7. I believe the Jubilee follows the Sabbath and interrupts the Sabbath Year Cycle in order to represent Eternity

We also made a Jubilee Bead Cycle bracelet, which could be used as a follow-up craft for a Bible Class after the kids see the larger version for the story. I panicked a little when I took this photo because I thought for a moment that I had put the beads on in the wrong order. I didn't, it just needs to be flipped over! And the elastic to be trimmed...

I am thinking of writing Bible verses on each wooden bead which can be talked about in order when showing the kids (and adults). I think us adults learn through visual stimuli just as much as the kids...

There are so many examples of seven year periods in the Bible:

• Jacob working for Rachel, Leah, and his flocks
• Pharaoh's dreams of the seven years of plenty and the seven years of famine
• Solomon's Temple took seven years to build
• The wicked queen Athaliah reigned six years and they were set free from her on the Sabbath
• Daniel's seventy weeks (works out to 10 Jubilee cycles)
• Hezekiah records a harvest lasting three years (probably over a Jubilee)... 
• and I haven't looked into events that might have lasted 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49 or 50 years yet!

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Have you made any other Rosh Hashanah / Feast of Trumpets or Yom Kippur / Day of Atonement crafts? Let me know below!