Our discussion of religious holidays made me remember something I wrote about a holiday that’s coming next week: Hanukkah. Here’s a piece I wrote a few years ago:
The Festival of Lights
About 170 years before the birth of our Lord, there was a Syrian king named Antiochus Epiphanes who decided to eradicate the Jewish religion. He began his effort through peaceful means, but eventually turned to force. He invaded Jerusalem, and it is said that as many as 80,000 Jews died during the fighting. He desecrated the temple, setting it up as a brothel dedicated to pagan gods. His most outrageous act was a sacrifice he made to the Greek god Zeus; the king had a pig sacrificed on the altar of the temple, the highest offense that could be made to the Jews.
A priest named Mattathias killed a royal commissioner and an apostate Jew who were about to offer a pagan sacrifice, sparking an outbreak of guerrilla fighting. Mattathias’ son Judas became the leader of the rebellion, earning the name the Maccabee (“hammerer”). Judas reconquered Jerusalem and cleansed the temple. A feast was set up to commemorate this cleansing, called the Feast of Cleansing, or “Hanukah.” It begins on the 25th day of the Jewish month of Chislev and runs for eight days. The Jewish calendar is different from the Roman calendar that we use; Hanukah began at sundown on December 25, 2005, and will end at sundown tomorrow.
Hanukah is also called the Festival of Lights; Josephus, a Jewish historian who wrote about conditions during the time of the New Testament, calls it merely “The Lights.” You may be familiar with the menorah, the seven-branched lampstand that is used today by Jewish families. It commemorates a legend that says that when the temple was rededicated, there was only enough for one day, yet the lamps kept burning for a full eight days. Jewish people today light one lamp of the menorah each day of Hanukah; the last lamp will be lit this evening in many Jewish homes.
In Jesus’ day, the temple was illuminated during this feast. This would have been true when Jesus was there in John 10:22 and following: “Then came the Feast of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple area walking in Solomon’s Colonnade.” (10:22-23) The last time that he had been in the temple, he had stood near the great lamps that were set up during the Feast of Tabernacles and had proclaimed himself “the Light of the World.” The Jews had sought to stone him then and were ready to challenge him now. They asked him to tell them directly if he was or was not the Christ. He replied that he had already told them, by words and by deeds. He said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). Once again the Jews took up stones to kill him. Many today do not understand Jesus’ claims, but the Jews understood them very clearly. They knew that he claimed to be God made flesh. And they sought to apprehend him when he said, “Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But if I do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father” (10:37-38).
The feast of Hanukkah is about purification and cleansing. It is about light. How fitting it is that Jesus, the Light of the World, should have stood in the temple during that feast teaching the people about the purification that he offered. His words on that day are as true today as they were then: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:27-28)
We do not light menorahs nor do we celebrate Hanukah. But we do celebrate the true Light of the World, the Lamb of God who died to purify and consecrate his people, to rededicate them to the service of God. Let us shine this light out to the world. Let us proclaim to the world the cleansing that only Christ can give.