I Am 50. The Year of My Jubilee.A Return to Joy, to Silence, and to the Sacred Land inside my Soul!

In the West, birthdays are often a personal spotlight candles, gifts, and applause for one more lap around the sun. But here, in the land where the Scriptures were breathed, time feels different. In the Aramaic and Hebraic world, the day you were born is not just a date to repeat every year. it’s the moment God appointed you to step into His unfolding story.

I have spent much of my life leading others through the Holy Land land showing pilgrims the stones, the olive trees, the paths of Yeshua. But now, the Spirit is guiding me through the inner terrain of my own soul. There are fields inside me that need to rest, Old vineyards needing song again. I hear the shofar not with my ears, but in my chest. A blast of mercy. A call to begin again.

I want to laugh more this year. I want to sit under a tree, not to teach, not to plan, but just to breathe. I want to remember what it feels like to play, to cry, to listen. I want to let joy surprise me again like it used to when I was a boy watching the sunset over Mountains of Jerusalem or listening to my mother pray for me in whispers. That’s the kind of happiness I seek now not noisy, but true.

Fifty is not the end of something it’s the return. The realignment. A turning toward the Face that has never looked away. I don’t want to be impressive anymore. I want to be whole. And maybe that’s the point of Jubilee: not to change who I am, but to finally embrace who I’ve become, with gratitude, grace, and gentleness of the Holy Spirit.

So I welcome this Jubilee not with any fear but with open arms. I want to live like someone who’s been given back to himself. To listen longer. To love deeper. To walk slower through the sacred ground of my own being. I want to live this year liturgically not by the calendar of the world, but by the rhythm of the Kingdom.

"This is the year," the Spirit whispers, to return and have Joy, even if you’re still in the wilderness.

To walk with Me in the moments of the day, and know you are not lost just coming home.” Let the shofar sound within me. Let the release begin.May I be free. May I be full.

And may joy not the fleeting kind, but the rooted kind Joy grow again in the soil of my soul.

A Story “The Birthday on the Sea of Galilee”

One spring morning, I was guiding a group on the Sea of Galilee. The lake was calm, the Golan Heights standing like ancient guardians on the horizon. As we boarded the wooden boat, one of the group members whispered to me, “Andre… it’s my birthday today.”

Now, in the West, that usually means a cake, candles, and maybe a loud song at a restaurant. But here in Israel, I told her, birthdays take on a different shade. I explained how, in the Bible, birthdays were not marked every year as self-focused events. Instead, life was measured in covenant moments when God moved, when a promise was fulfilled, when His mercy was seen clearly.

I turned to the group and said, “Today, we’re going to mark this birthday like the ancients would  not by counting the years behind, but by naming the faithfulness of God.” We all fell quiet. The boat captain cut the engine, and we drifted in stillness. I opened to Psalm 90:12 in Hebrew and Aramaic: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

I asked her to share one thing from the past year where she had seen God’s hand. She began to speak about a healing in her family, about prayers answered in ways she couldn’t have imagined. One by one, others in the group began to share their own stories. That “birthday” became a community altar  a floating testimony meeting in the middle of the Galilee.

When we docked, she told me it was the most meaningful birthday she had ever had. No candles, no balloons  just the deep sense that her life was anchored in God’s story, not just her own.

Wooden boat on the sea of Galilee

That day reminded me: in the Eastern way, a birthday is not about celebrating how far you’ve come, but about proclaiming how far God has carried you. And when you’re surrounded by fellow travelers on the journey, the celebration becomes a shared praise to the One who gave us every breath.

In the biblical Eastern world, birthdays were rarely celebrated and when they were marked, they often carried deep symbolic or covenantal meaning rather than personal self-focus.

Identity and Community Over Individual Spotlight

In the Middle Eastern biblical culture, identity was understood communally. You weren’t “Andre, age 50” in isolation—you were “Andre, son of…”; “Andre of this tribe, this family, this covenant community.”

Birth was celebrated as God’s blessing to the family and community, not a personal achievement. Elders were honored more for the length and faithfulness of their walk with God than for the date of their birth. A birthday was meaningful when tied to a story of God’s providence, often recalled in blessings or prophetic words over one’s life.

The Jubilee Connection at 50

Turning fifty in biblical thought carries profound covenantal resonance. In Hebrew, יובל (yovel) means “Jubilee” a once-in-a-lifetime appointed year of freedom, restoration, and rest (Leviticus 25). Land returned to original owners. Debts were forgiven. Slaves were set free. The shofar was sounded to announce release.From an Aramaic-Eastern lens, your 50th isn’t a “birthday party”. It’s a spiritual announcement of release and renewal. It’s an opportunity to take stock of your journey, restore relationships, forgive what has been held too long, and re-align with God’s purposes.

A Day of Gratitude and Re-Dedication

In the biblical Eastern mindset, the value of a birthday is not in celebrating the self but in:

Thanksgiving: publicly recognizing God’s mercy in sustaining your life.

Blessing: speaking and receiving words of life from family, elders, and the faith community.

Rededication: using the occasion to re-consecrate your years ahead to God’s service.

In other words, a birthday is not a memorial of survival—it’s a marker of stewardship: “What have I done with the days given, and how will I use the ones to come?”