Hanukkah and Thanksgiving: Two Holidays in One

For most Christians, Hanukkah means little more than brass menorahs with nine branches, toy dreidels, tiny candles, and dark blue and white decorations. Yet, as with most Jewish holy days and feasts, this one, too, is significant for non-Jews as well.

Were it not for Hanukkah, the Jewish nation could have easily become just another Greek province.  There would have been no distinct Jewish nation or family for Jesus to have been born into.  in short, there would be no Christmas.

Hanukkah is the Hebrew word meaning "dedication."  What may surprise you is that this Feast of Dedication is actually found in Scripture.  John 10:22 records, "Then the Festival of Dedication took place in Jerusalem, and it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon."

The Messiah was in the temple at the time of Hanukkah, no doubt celebrating in remembrance with His fellow Jews. 

The eight day Hanukkah celebration serves as a reminder of the period of time immediately preceding Christ's birth when Alexander the Great and the Greeks sought to assimilate everything and everyone in their path, including the conquered nation of Israel.

As you might imagine, there was pressure from the upper classes and priests for Israel to fit into this Greek culture.  Conforming would just make life easier, right?

Sure...except for the parts where Hellenistic Greek culture was filled with rampant immorality, worship of false gods, and disregard for the non-progressive idea that Jehovah was the sole God of the universe and not Zeus. 

Antiochus Epiphanes, King of Syria, held this part of Alexander's empire and, two hundred years before Christ's birth, decided to turn all Jews into Greeks, to force them to assimilate.  How better to do this than to conspire with several Jewish leaders to conscript the temple of God for Greek worship.  The result was God's temple transformed into a temple for Zeus with his statue placed inside the Holy of Holies.  What's more, the corrupt priests sacrificed pig's blood to this idol within the temple walls, an abomination and flagrant disregard for God's instructions regarding the purity of His holy temple.

Then there was King Antiochus, himself.  His second name meant "the epiphany of the gods," a personal attempt to claim divinity in flesh for himself.   In short, he claimed to be a god made flesh, dwelling among them. Immanuel, with a lowercase "i."

In 165 B.C.E., a devout group of Jews called the Maccabees revolted against this attempt at assimilation.  They reclaimed the temple, cleansed it after the desecration, and then dedicated it once again so worship of God could continue as He had prescribed in the Torah.

Dedication.  Hanukkah.

Fast forward to that Festival of Dedication in the New Testament.  Into the temple walks another man of flesh claiming to be God and saying, "I and the Father are one" (Jn. 10:30).  With memories of Antiochus Epiphanes fresh in their mind at this Feast, it's no wonder the crowd picked up stones to use against Jesus "'for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God'" (Jn. 10:33).

The sad thing is that while Antiochus had been mere flesh, Jesus was the one they had all been waiting for.  He really was God dwelling among them. Immanuel, God with us, but this time with a capital "I."

This year, Hanukkah begins in the evening of Wednesday, November 27 and ends in the evening of Thursday, December 5, 2013, is one of those rare occurrences when Hanukkah and Thanksgiving overlap.

We Christians already gathering to give thanks for God's blessings could benefit from pausing to remember Hanukkah as well.  As Messianic Jewish Rabbi Derek Leman says, "Hanukkah is about more than Jewish survival--it's about Jewish people resisting the temptation to assimilate and disappear.  It's about Jewish people remaining Jewish, no matter the cost" (Leman 110).


Sound familiar?  In a modern world where Christians are fighting this same battle to not assimilate, to not take the easy road and disappear into the throngs who refuse to acknowledge Scripture as God's revelation of Himself and His holy requirements, our remembering Hanukkah  could be as simple as reminding us to dedicate ourselves to purity and holiness in our worship of God.

It's about God's children remaining God's children....no matter the cost.


*Source: Leman, Derek.  Feast: Finding Yourself at the Table of Tradition.  Lifeway P, 2008.

The Fourth Day of Creation

Try as I might to ignore it, the calendar shows summer is fast coming to a close.  Only four more weeks until the rigor of autumn sets in with its 8 pm lights out and blaring wake-up alarms before dawn.  No more late nights reading chapter books with a flashlight beneath the covers.  No more turning off the alarm after a late evening's dip in the pool.

Even in the ninety degree south Louisiana heat, there were still a a few days last week when an almost constant breeze whispered of autumn's approach.  Before my eyes, summer will soon turn to autumn before winter's frozen death prepares the world again for spring's rebirth.

It is hard for me to comprehend that back before the beginning of the world, God had these seasons in His mind, and on the fourth day, He set them in motion when he placed the sun, moon, and stars in space.

Scripture says, "Then God said, 'Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth'; and it was so" (Gen. 1:14-15).

 This passage describes why God created the sun, moon, and stars--first for light and to separate the day and night, and second "for signs and for seasons."  

The Hebrew word in verse 14 for "seasons" is mow`ed, meaning "appointed time, appointed place, meeting."  Of the 223 times this word is used in the Old Testament, 150 of those usages are translated as congregation and 23 are translated as feasts.

Throughout Leviticus 23 (the chapter which succinctly describes the commanded seven Feasts of the Lord), this word for seasons is often translated as feasts.

For instance, the King James version says, "These [are] the feasts of the LORD , [even] holy  convocations , which ye shall proclaim  in their seasons" (Lev. 23:4).  In this verse, the words translated differently as feasts and seasons are the same--mow`ed.  

NASB translates the same verse as: "These are the appointed times of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at the times appointed for them," translating mow`ed as merely "appointed times."

In other words, one of the primary reasons God created the sun, moon, and stars was so they would serve as time markers for the seasons as a sign to show his people when to come together to celebrate His holy feasts, festivals, and Sabbaths.  God's people could watch the movement of the heavens and know which Feast of the Lord was to be celebrated when.

Getting the timing right for these feasts of remembrance and thanksgiving was that important to God.

To this day, the Jewish calendar still follows lunar months to ensure the feasts are kept in their correct seasons, exactly as commanded in Scripture.  The Jewish calendar includes "twelve lunar months of 29 or thirty days, which is about ten days short of a solar year, so seven years in every nineteen have an extra month."1

While this calendar that adds an extra month every seven years may seem odd to those of us who use the Gregorian calendar which follows the earth's progression around the sun, the Jewish calendar more accurately keeps the Feasts of the Lord in their proper seasons, especially considering some weren't commanded to be on a specific date each year, as with our Christmas always falling on December 25, but were, instead, counted so many days from the last feast, as is the case with Pentecost, which is held fifty days after Passover.

Over the past few months, we have explored the seven commanded Jewish Feasts of Leviticus 23 and have seen how God intended them all to point to Messiah, our Lord and Savior Jesus, whose march to the cross was set in motion before creation, itself.  His appointed time to be born in a body of flesh and to die a brutal death was already written in His own blood on a holy calendar.

Revelation 13:8 refers to Jesus as "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."  2 Timothy 1:9 says the grace of God "was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began."

Likewise, on the fourth day of creation when God was just beginning to form the world, He was already thinking of His feasts and Sabbaths, which would point to that appointed time when Jesus would come to earth and offer His life as a sacrifice, an atonement to cover all mankind's sin.

Knowing that God was already thinking of the feasts of Leviticus 23 when He was calibrating the heat of the sun and hanging the moon amidst a septillion stars makes the feasts seem that much more important to continue to celebrate today, even for us who are adopted by faith into the family.



1.  "The Jewish Calendar and the Gregorian Calendar." Wildolive.


Other Articles in this Jewish Feasts Series:
God's Annual Camp-out (Part 2)
A Doorway But No Roof: God's Annual Camp-out
When The Books Are Closed: A Look at Yom Kippur
A One Hundred Trumpet Blast Wake-Up Call
Positioning Passover Pronouns
Preparation Day: 'Go to Church' or Worship
Reorienting Our Lives: 50 Days From the Cross
Understanding the Jewish-ness of Jesus
The Truth About Passover