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Hanuka Should We or Shouldn’t We?
Posted by Josiah King on October 31, 2009 at 8:26am
in Festivals of Messianic Israel
Sermons Series 3:71, 30 December 2006:Our Last Hanukkah The Gospel vs. The Sword
You stated how you believe and why in the above Sermon.
My Reply ;
Ecclesiastes 3:1 tells us "there is an appointed time for everything to be a delight to heaven", then goes on to say there is a time for war.
For God’s people Israel, there is more than one time where He delivers us from slavery and oppression, and Hanuka is one of those times. Purim (the book of Esther), is another. They both commemorate God’s deliverance of His people.
Hanuka celebrates the mighty deliverance of God through the Maccabees who fought against an evil Syrian king who wanted to destroy the Jewish people, by sentencing to death anyone who kept Sabbath, etc. Outnumbered by trained armies, the priests and people of Judah fought and won many a battle, due to their faith in God. They were able to re-take the Temple and cleanse it from the idols that had been placed in it.
There is no reference to the one day’s worth of Temple oil lasting for the eight days of Hanuka. That’s purely rabbinic. But there is reference to Hanuka being celebrated for eight days. Why eight days? Some think it was a substitute for the fact that they hadn’t been able to observe the previous Sukote (Feast of Tabernacles), in October. And so in December, when the Maccabees cleansed the Temple of the pagan things and tore down the Altar, they may have incorporated Sukote’s eight days as a way of celebrating their victory. Eight days for Hanuka is mentioned in First Maccabees:
‘Then Judas (Judah) and his brothers and all the assembly of Israel determined that every year at that season, the days of dedication of the Altar should be observed with joy and gladness for eight days, beginning with the twenty-fifth day of the month of Kislev’ (1st Mac. 4:59, NRSV).
There is another reason why Hanuka lasts for eight days and this I believe is closer to the truth. When Moses consecrates Aaron and his sons for the priesthood, and the Tabernacle is dedicated for service, we see an eight day period (Lev. 8-9). This was most likely on the minds of the Torah observant Maccabees and the reason for the eight days as the very word ‘hanuka’ means, ‘dedication.’ As such, Hanuka becomes for us an eight day period of re-dedication of ourselves to Messiah Yeshua, asking Him to cleanse us of our idols, that we might be fully consecrated to Him.
With Hanuka, as well as Purim,I take them not as holy days, but as holidays, commemorating historical times in Hebrew history that God moved to deliver His Jewish people from certain death. They are mini-deliverance times, or, mini-Passovers (Passover being THE day of deliverance).
What’s the difference between a holy day and a holiday? Holy days are commanded by God and are linked with Sabbaths. These can all be seen in Leviticus 23. Holidays like Hanuka, are not ‘holy’, and fall into the category of something like the Fourth of July, or Presidents Day, etc., for America. Holidays are times of remembrance, but not Sabbaths or holy times.
Much on Hanuka is cultural, like potato latkes (which isn’t necessarily evil or bad). Some things can be non productive though, like the giving of gifts for the eight nights. This is in competition with Christmas. As nice as gifts are to receive, Hanuka is not about gift giving but about rededication of ourselves (the Temple of Yeshua), to the Lord. It’s also a family time.
Hanuka is an historical event that we Jewish people (and all those grafted into Israel too), can celebrate as another time when God delivered His people. It’s in recognition of this that the celebration takes place. Hanuka means dedication and points to the re-dedicating of the Temple after it was taken back from the hands of the wicked Syrian king.
For us, the major theme of Hanuka is our re-dedicating ourselves to Yeshua, to His purpose for our lives. In this we see the cleansing of the Temple in the days of the Maccabees as an apt picture for what Yeshua wants to do with us, the temple of the Living God (1st Cor. 3:16). And with Yeshua declaring at Hanuka in the Temple in Jerusalem that day, that He was the visible manifestation of the Living God, we see Yeshua authenticating Hanuka for all of us, and our children.
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Reply by Lev/Christopher on October 31, 2009 at 11:02am
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Updated on 5 May 2010
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