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Newsletters December 2008 Jesus Celebrated Hanukkah
Newsletters December 2008 Jesus Celebrated Hanukkah
| Jesus Celebrated Hanukkah |
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What Do You Mean that Jesus Celebrated Hanukkah? Check Out John 10:22-31! A remarkable event often happens when I mention that Jesus as a good Jewish man celebrated all the holidays. Most will understand this to mean Passover, Rosh Hashanah, and Yom Kippur. He did celebrate those holidays … and aren’t we thankful that He is the fulfillment of these blessed events! However, the confusion for many comes when I mention that He also celebrated Hanukkah and this celebration is one of the most important events in Scripture. As you read this article (especially if you are still skeptical), go to John 10:22-31 and read the passage. This section tells us that Jesus was in the Temple during the “Feast of Dedication” and it was winter time. This verse gives us the setting for a most dramatic and controversial event in the life of Jesus. Jesus was observing Hanukkah, in John 10, but not like the other Jewish spectators of His day. The Jews of Judea were waiting and hoping that another Judas Maccabee (their revised understanding of the Messiah) would arise and destroy the Roman soldiers who were desecrating their land. The Jewish people of Jesus’ time were no longer looking for a Messiah to save their souls but a Messiah who would drive out the foreigners who had been invited into the country by the later descendants of the very first Maccabee. Therefore, their questions, in the rest of the passage, asking Him if He was the Messiah was not a spiritual question but a political one. His answer, “I and my Father are one,” was not a political one but one that shook the foundations of their beliefs about God and ultimate liberation. The reason they wanted to stone Jesus was not because He said that He was the Messiah but because He said He was God. In other words, the Jews in the Temple that day believed that Jesus had committed blasphemy while missing the fact that He had just promised them liberation on a scale that was far beyond the Romans and any other foreign army. He was promising them liberation of their souls from sin. Today, Jewish people during the Hanukkah will light their candles hoping for a political Messiah. We have the job and responsibility to tell them that Messiah has come and He is God and He is hope and He is eternal liberation. |
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