Let me begin by answering the question...Why This Devotion? What can a Christian learn from Hanukkah to strengthen my faith in Christ?
Well - a lot actually.
The story behind the celebration of Hanukkah occurs in 1 & 2 Maccabees, Maccabees being the name of a family in Israel. The book of the Maccabees is found in what’s called the Apocrypha, or Deuterocanonical books - a collection of manuscripts written in the 400 year time period between the Old and New Testaments. The word apocrypha means “hidden,” while the word deuterocanonical means “second canon.” For Catholics, the books of the Aprocrypha are included in your Bible, for Protestants, they are not. Either way, the story behind Hanukkah is found here. It’s a historical record of what was taking place in Israel during the time of an evil ruler.
Hanukkah means “dedication” and so “dedication” and “rededication” will be our primary focus in this series. Each day we will unpack a different aspect of this historic story and what was taking place with God’s people, and then apply it to our lives as we prepare our hearts during the Advent season. We will be led to examine our lives, and then make adjustments where needed to align with God’s purposes for us.
In a world fraught with much unrest and concern, this is a perfect time to take inventory.
To commemorate Hanukkah, Jews around the world take time to light what’s called a menorah, a candle stand with different receptacles on it to hold individual candles. Throughout the holiday, a new candle is lit each day to commemorate the events that took place in Israel many years ago. If you have a menorah, you are probably ready to go. However, if you do not own a menorah and would like to light a candle each day, feel free to light any candle you have in your home. Or, just follow along and reflect on each day.
An Overview
Hanukkah runs from sundown to sundown - how a day is counted in Judaism - which means we light our first candle tonight. But before we do that, let’s find out what was taking place in Israel which led to this holiday.
During the time of the Maccabees, Israel found itself under a Hellenized culture, challenging the people of God culturally and spiritually. Would they conform to pagan practices like their neighboring nations, or stay true to the Living God - YHWH?
Judea is southern Israel’s mountainous region and the scene from which the story of Hanukah originates. In 198 BC, Syria’s Seleucid dynasty forcibly took Israel from its previous rulers — the Egyptian Ptolemies. Both of these Gentile groups were descended from Greek generals (Seleucus and Ptolemy) who had inherited those regions 200 years earlier after their master, Alexander the Great, died. At first, the changeover in occupying forces had little effect on the Jews, who remained free to practice nominal self-government, and, most importantly, their faith under their new ruler, Antiochus III. Generations of Judeans had become accustomed to benign overlords, so this was no different. But upon the death of Antiochus III and the ascension of his son, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, in 175 BC, intolerance and tension began to grow in the Jewish homeland. Antiochus Epiphanies, whose name means "God manifest," became the new Syrian king. In his quest to conquer the ancient world, Israel found itself in the crosshairs. The population of Judea at the time was about 250,000 at most, with only a fraction of those being able-bodied young men. But even despite that, defiant Jews had begun rioting in Jerusalem against this hostile new king.
Antiochus dispatched one of his most competent generals, Apollonius, to quell the Jewish insurrection and whose troops massacred most of the Jewish population of Jerusalem. Not only that, they burned revered documents containing Mosaic law, threw young mothers and their newly circumcised infant sons to their deaths from city walls, looted the temple treasures, and then desecrated its holy sanctuary by converting it into a shrine to Zeus.
Word spread swiftly and one family rose up in response. Mattathias Maccabees, an aging priest from a rural priestly family living in a place called Modi’in (Modein) in the hill country of Judeah, and his five grown sons - John, Simeon, Judah (called Maccabees), Eleazer, and Jonathan - incited the townspeople to rise against the invaders and wipe them out, marking the first in a lengthy string of reverses for the Seleucids in what came to be called the Maccabean Revolt.
Leading his small band of about 200 people (with perhaps 50 fighting men), Mattathias commenced training the peasants in the guerrilla tactics he realized were their only hope against the mighty Seleucid empire. What followed was a prolonged season of guerrilla warfare against the evil forces of Syria and their king, Antiochus Epiphanes.
In the end, the final result of these battles became one of the most widely observed holidays for the Jewish people: the festival of Hanukkah, also called the festival of lights.
Our present day environment is no different. We are being influenced by ungodly forces working against culture and against God’s people. We are being challenged culturally and spiritually, being bombarded with profane and unholy things. We are a people called to be a holy people, set apart unto God, not mixing with the unholy things of the world. So the question is...Will we be like Mattathias Maccabee and his sons and take a stand for our covenantal relationship with Jesus Christ? Will we take a stand for families and children as culture tries to redefine what marriage and family look like? Will we take a stand for the Word of God, the Bible, as it’s being mocked and rejected as our source for truth? Will we take a stand for our temple - our personal temple (what we eat, drink, watch, etc.) and our corporate temple - the body of Christ - His Church? Will we come together in a spirit of unity and bond of peace? Will we be a city on a hill - a lamp that cannot be hid - to draw people to the light of Christ? Or, will we be mixing ourselves with idolatrous practices that have the appearance of godliness but deny its power? The Maccabees stood in the face of evil and so should we...not through guerrilla warfare but by standing for righteousness. The choice is ours every day.
Ponder these thoughts before our next time together, and then join us over the next eight days as we take a different approach to Hanukkah and take inventory of our own lives and temple in which the Holy Spirit resides. Each day we will include a portion of the story, a short devotional, and then time to light a candle....beginning right now.
The tradition during Hanukkah is that one candle is lit each day until the menorah is filled with light by the eighth day, symbolizing not only God’s light in our life, but in the story - the rededication of the temple back to the One True God. The middle candle, called the Shammash, is used to light the other eight. So for us, we will do this in remembrance of this story, but also, reminded that through Christ we are His light in the world today...and the importance of consecrating, dedicating or "rededicating” our own temples back to Him.
So, if you have a menorah, light the middle candle now....now pick up that middle candle and light the candle farthest to the right. If you don’t have a menorah, any candle will do, or just sit in reflection. As we close today's overview, our prayer is that you will join us each day over the next eight days and be blessed in a unique way during this Advent season.
God Bless You.
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