Gordon Franz<\/b><\/p>\n
As a young boy, I remember well the excitement as the Christmas season approached. There was snow on the ground, sleigh riding, Christmas trees and caroling, manger scenes and eggnog. Yet I also remember another holiday which my Jewish friends celebrated about the same time\u2014Hanukkah. In elementary school they would play with their dreidels and tell about the presents they received the previous night. I must confess my greedy jealousy. They got presents for eight nights and we only got them on Christmas morning!<\/p>\n
This year our Jewish friends will commence celebrating Hannukkah from sundown on December 13 until sundown on the 21st. Families will gather together to exchange presents and also to light a new candle each night on their nine branch candelabrum.<\/p>\n
The Origin of Hanukkah<\/b><\/p>\n
Hanukkah is a festival which commemorates the purification and rededication of the Temple by Judas Maccabeus on Kislev 25, 164 BC (usually in December). Three years prior, Antiochus IV, the Seleucid (Syrian) king, defiled the Temple by erecting an idol to Baal Shamen (Zeus), sacrificing a pig on the altar and proclaiming himself to be a god. Some of the coins he minted had his features on the face of Zeus along with the word \u201cEpiphanes\u201d meaning \u201cthe God Manifest.\u201d He also decreed that Torah (the Law of God) could not be studied under penalty of death, circumcision was forbidden and the Sabbath was not to be kept. This brought an internal struggle within Judaism out in the open. On the one hand there were the observant Jews who wanted to keep Torah, and on the other, the Hellenized Jews who wanted to assimilate into the Greek culture around them and become \u201cborn again\u201d Greeks!<\/p>\n
Antiochus sent troops from village to village with a statue of himself ordering people to bow down to it. One day they arrived in the village of Modein. An elderly man stepped forward to comply with the order, but an observant priest, Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, thrust him through with a spear and also killed one of the Seleucid soldiers. Thus began the Maccabean Revolt. Mattathias, his five sons, and others fled into the Gophna Hills and conducted a guerrilla war against the Seleucids for three years. Finally, Jerusalem was liberated. Yet the Temple was defiled. The history of this revolt is found in 1 Maccabees 1 and 4 and 2 Macabees 6 and 10.<\/p>\n
BSP<\/i> 11:4 (Fall 1998) p. 92<\/p>\n
The Rabbis recount the miracle of Hanukkah in these terms,<\/p>\n
On Kislev 25 begin the Hanukka days, eight of them… When the Greeks entered the Temple Sanctuary, then contaminated all the oil. Then the Hasmoneans defeated them, they searched and found only one cruse of oil bearing the High Priest\u2019s seal. This cruse had enough oil of only eight days. The following year, these days were declared a holiday to be celebrated with the saying of Hallel and thanksgiving prayers (Megillat Taanit<\/i>).<\/p>\n
This is the reason they light one additional candle each night on their candelabrum.<\/p>\n
Jesus Celebrates Hanukkah<\/b><\/p>\n
The Lord Jesus observed the celebration of Hanukkah in the Temple during the winter of AD 29 (Jn 10:22\u201339). Just prior to this account, two \u201cillustrations\u201d (10:6) of Jesus as the Good Shepherd (10:1\u20135 and 10:7\u201310) were given along with Jesus\u2019 interpretation of these parables (10:11\u201318). The Jewish reader would immediately pick up the messianic connotation of this discourse. The Davidic Messiah would be a Shepherd (Ez 34).<\/p>\n
As He walked through Solomon\u2019s porch on the east side of the Temple enclosure, some Jews approached Him and asked point blank, \u201cAre you the Messiah?\u201d (10:24). Jesus had to be careful how He answered. During the festival, throngs of Jews caught up in the nationalistic fervor were visiting Jerusalem. The word \u201cMessiah\u201d might spark riots because of its heavy nationalistic and political over-tones.<\/p>\n
Roman intelligence, headquartered in the Antonia\u2019s Fortress to the northwest of the Temple, was aware of a popular song entitled \u201cA Psalm of Solomon, with Song, the King.\u201d In this song, composed during the mid first century BC by a Pharisee, the Lord was acknowledged as king and a Davidic ruler would reign forever. He describes how the latter Hasmonean rulers led the people away from the Torah and the people were punished by the Romans under the leadership of Pompey. He prays that the Lord will raise up a king, the Son of David, to rule over Israel. In so doing, this king would \u201cdestroy the unrighteous rulers,\u201d \u201csmash the arrogance of sinners,\u201d \u201cdrive out the sinners,\u201d and \u201cdestroy the unlawful nations!\u201d All this would be done by their king, the Lord Messiah! (Psalms of Solomon<\/i> 17). If Jesus answered the question \u201cyes,\u201d the Roman authorities would have arrested Him on the spot for insurrection.<\/p>\n
Jesus does, however, answer the question in the affirmative, but not directly. When He answers, He is careful not to use the contemporary term and understanding. After pointing out the security which a believer in the Lord Jesus has because of faith in Him, He says \u201cI and my Father are one!\u201d (10:30). That statement had heavy religious overtones for the festival which they were presently celebrating. Those gathered on the Temple Mount recalled the events nearly 200 years before on the very mount where Antiochus IV, a mere man, proclaimed himself god. Jesus, the LORD manifest in human flesh, made the same claim but His claim was true. The Jews picked up stones to stone Him for blasphemy because, in their thinking, He was a man who made Himself God (10:31\u201333). Jesus declared that He was the fulfillment of Hanukkah by saying the Father \u201csanctified\u201d the Son of God and sent Him into the world (10:34\u201336). The Father was in Him and He in the Father (10:38). If the Greek word \u201csanctified\u201d was translated into Hebrew, it would be \u201cdedication\u201d or Hanukkah!<\/p>\n
A Biblical Perspective<\/b><\/p>\n
John wrote his gospel primarily to a Jewish and Samaritan audience. One of the unique things about John\u2019s gospel is his emphasis on the Jewish and Samaritan festivals and his indication that Jesus was the fulfillment of these holidays. Hanukkah was the rededication of a defiled Temple. At the beginning of Jesus\u2019 public ministry, He said:<\/p>\n
\u201cDestroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.\u201d Then the Jews said, \u201cIt has taken 46 years to build this Temple, and will you raise it up in three days?\u201d But He was speaking of the temple of His body (Jn 2:19\u201321).<\/p>\n
Herod\u2019s Temple had been defiled by a wicked and corrupt priesthood. The Lord Jesus was \u201csanctified\u201d by His death, burial and resurrection and is the New Temple.<\/p>\n
The Apostle John selected \u201csigns\u201d (miracles) and events when he penned his gospel, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to convey two purposes (John 20:30\u201331). The first was to present the deity of the Lord Jesus. John skillfully selects the Hanukkah event because of the festival impact on the crowd. In contrast to the arrogant and blasphemous statement by Antiochus IV, Jesus truly is God manifest in human flesh. The second purpose was to challenge people to put their trust (believe) in the Lord Jesus Christ as the One who died for their sins and rose again from the dead. When they trust Him, God gives them the gift of eternal life, forgiveness of sins and a home in Heaven. There seems to be a marked contrast between the response of the Jews on the Temple Mount (10:37\u201339) and those \u201cbeyond the Jordan\u201d who believed on Him (10:40\u201342).<\/p>\n
What is your response? Have you trusted the One who is the fulfillment of Hanukkah?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gordon Franz As a young boy, I remember well the excitement as the Christmas season approached. There was snow on the ground, sleigh riding, Christmas trees and caroling, manger scenes and eggnog. Yet I also remember another holiday which my Jewish friends celebrated about the same time\u2014Hanukkah. In elementary school they would play with their … Continue reading “HANUKKAH:
\nTHE FESTIVAL OF LIGHT”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}