The Feast of Chanukkah (Dedication)

(Based on Rev. Kevin Parviz’s 2000 Lenten Series, published by Concordia Pulpit Resources)
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
John 10:22 “At that time the Feast of the Dedication took place at
Jerusalem; 23 it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the
portico of Solomon. 24 The Jews then gathered around Him, and were
saying to Him, ‘How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the
Christ, tell us plainly.’ 25 Jesus answered them, ‘I told you, and you do
not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me.
26 But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep. 27 My sheep
hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28 and I give
eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch
them out of My hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater
than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 I
and the Father are one.’ 31 “The Jews picked up stones again to stone
Him. 32 Jesus answered them, ‘I showed you many good works from the
Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?’ 33 The Jews answered
Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and
because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.’” (NASB)
Three God ordained Festivals back-to-back, lasting 23 days in the fall. Day
24. . . , time to pack up the tents and head home for the winter, with the exception
of one winter Feast, the Feast of Dedication, Hanukkah. But unlike the prior
festivals there is no instruction from God saying this “shall be a perpetual statute
throughout your generations.”
In fact, you should have noticed there was no Old Testament lesson for this
evening’s service, thus no Old Testament reading commanding this fourth feast in
the Jewish year. That’s because God did not ordain a winter festival and there isn’t
a word about in the entire Old Testament. At the end of the Feast of Booths, God
sent them home to their ordinary lives until the spring and Passover.
In fact, the only reference we have to the Jewish Feast of Hanukkah is the
one found here in the New Testament. John 10:22 “At that time the Feast of the
Dedication took place at Jerusalem; 23 it was winter, and Jesus was walking in
the temple in the portico of Solomon.”
The Feast of Hanukkah has its roots in an event that occurred during the
intertestamental period. The intertestamental period is the time between the last
book of the Bible Malachi and the birth of Jesus, which lasted about 400 years.
Now the fact that there were no universally accepted Old Testament books
written during this period of time regarding the history of the Jews doesn’t mean
there weren’t books written during the intertestamental period. 1 and 2 Maccabees
are two of the 15 or so books that the church has called the apocryphal books.
These books are not Holy Scripture, but they do contain written accounts of people
and events during that 400 year period.
1 and 2 Maccabees covers an even that took place 167 years before the birth
of Christ. Israel was occupied by the Syrians. The Syrians had been conquered by
Alexander the Great about a 150 years earlier. As a result, the Syrians were
culturally and religiously Greek. The Jews were also subjugated under Alexander
the Great, but they remained monotheistic and culturally Jewish.
As you know that Greeks worshiped many gods and the king who had been
given control over Israel around 175 B.C. decided that he would drag the Jews,
kicking and screaming, into a more pluralistic religious world. The king took the
name Antiochus Epiphanes, which means “Antiochus, the manifestation of god.”
Not a good way to start off relations with the Jews.
But it got worse. Much worse. Antiochus ordered that statues of him be
created and be placed in towns throughout Israel and throughout the country side.
He ordered Jews and Gentiles alike to bow before his likeness and worship him
when ever they passed before his image. He also placed his likeness in the Temple
and had a pig sacrificed there to make it unclean in the hope that the Jews would
forsake the temple and stop worshiping there.
There was a priest in the Temple named Mattathias. He fought back against
the king and fled to hide out in the hills in Judea where he started a resistence
movement. His son, Judah recruited a small army and conducted raids. Judah was
such a fierce fighter he was given the nickname, Maccabee, which means hammer,
as in “the hammer of God. Many who joined the resistence came to believe that
Judah was God’s promised Messiah, the political liberator.
The resistence became a war and the books of Maccabees record the details
of the armies and of the battles. As you can imagine the Jewish freedom fighters
were greatly out numbered and poorly armed. The Syrians on the other hand were
well trained, well armed, part of the Greek empire. They even had elephants as
weapons. They used them the same way Alexander the Great had when he
conquered the known world. They would get the elephants drunk and them run
them into the enemies lines.
Yet, Judah and his small rage tag army defeated the Syrians. They took their
land and city back and with it they won the right to worshiped as they saw fit. The
victory was regarded as a miracle of God.
Now the temple had been so defiled by Antiochus that it could not be used
again unless properly cleansed and dedicated back into the service of the Lord
God, Yahweh Elohim.
The recorded history takes us through the cleansing of the temple, the
consecration of the altar, the repair of the lamp-stand, and the rehanging of the
curtains to wall off the holy of holies. The rest is left to oral tradition.
Remember the Temple and all its details were designed by God. In Exodus
25 He even gave them specific details regarding the lampstand. “Then you shall
make a lampstand of pure gold. The lampstand and its base and its shaft are to
be made of hammered work; its cups, its bulbs and its flowers shall be of one
piece with it” and so on. Ex. 25:31
The lampstand had been God ordained and God designed. After the war, the
Jews restored the lampstand to the temple, but found only enough oil to keep the
lampstand lit for a day. Now that the Temple was back under Jewish control and
cleansed the lamp had to be lit and once lit it was to remain lit 24/7. That was an
ordinance as well. Exodus 27:20 “You shall charge the sons of Israel, that they
bring you clear oil of beaten olives for the light, to make a lamp burn
continually. 21 In the tent of meeting, outside the veil which is before the
testimony, Aaron and his sons shall keep it in order from evening to morning
before the Lord; it shall be a perpetual statute throughout their generations for
the sons of Israel.”
The lamp was a symbol of God’s presence among His people lighting the
way of His salvation. So when Jesus repeatedly told His disciples and His
opponents that He was the Light that had come into the world, He was probably
invoking the image of the lampstand in the Temple.
Tradition says that even though the Maccabees had only one day of oil, the
lamp stayed lit for eight days, long enough for the Israelites to prepare a supply of
oil to keep the lamp lit indefinitely. Tradition declared it a miracle.
As with all these kinds of festivals, other traditions were added to it as time
went on. The dreidel is one example. The lampstand in the temple had seven arms.
But the lamp that has come to be associated with the Feast of Hanukkah, the
menorah, has nine branches. Eight branches to remind Jews of how God made the
oil last for eight days and the ninth branch . . . Well, its origin is a bit of a
mystery, but it does serve a practical purpose.
The ninth branch is called the Shammes, which is a Hebrew word for
“servant.” The ninth branch serves the other eight by acting as the source of light,
the flame for the other eight. On each day of Hanukkah, one of the eight branches
is light from the ninth one. The ninth is dedicated to the service of the others.
Now after driving out the Syrians and taking control of the temple, the Jews
cleansed the temple and dedicated, that is put back into the service of the Lord
God, Yahweh Elohim.
Nearly 200 years had passed. Judah the Maccabee, the one who was
once hailed as God’s Messiah, has been dead for a very long time. The temple still
stands. The lamp still burns, but both remain because the Romans allow them to be
so. So the Jews continue to look for their political deliverer, the Messiah.
It was winter. It was the Feast of Dedication, Hanukkah. Jesus was walking
in the portico (porch) of Solomon. 24 “The Jews then gathered around Him, and
were saying to Him, ‘How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the
Christ, tell us plainly.’”
They were looking for another Maccabee. They were looking the “hammer
of God” who would deliver them from the political occupation and oppressors of
their day, the Romans. In their minds and doctrine the Christ was suppose to be
the leader who will drive out all oppressors and establish a new and glorious Israel
that will go unchallenged in the world. They are confused and they fault Jesus for
their confusion. “If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.’”
25 “Jesus answered them, ‘I told you, and you do not believe; the works
that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me.’” They had been looking for a
“christ” who could rally men to the cause, their cause. To them Jesus was a picture
of contradictions and confusion. Clearly He had power. Clearly He could do things
that no one else could do, but He was sending all the wrong messages. They
wanted a political and military leader who could and would can deliver
deliverance.
The Feast of Dedication was rooted in two events; a victory on the
battlefield and a miracle of light in the temple. They are looking for one kind of
thing, but Jesus represented an entirely different kind of Messiah.
In His reply instead of using the image of a great king or soldier, Jesus once
again reminds them of what kind of Messiah God had sent to them and why it is
they can’t see the Truth Who stands before them.
26 “You do not believe because you are not of My sheep. 27 My sheep
hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.”
When they ask Him if He is the promised Christ, Jesus has several Old
Testament images and metaphors from which to pick. He uses the images of the
Shepherd and the sheep. He is the Shepherd and the faithful Hebrew the sheep.
The vocation of shepherd hardly says, “greatness.” The image of a pasture
with a herd of sheep hardly invokes the image of victory on the battlefield. Rather,
sheep, unprotected will end up scattered and slaughtered. That is not what the
questioners are looking for.
Jesus is the servant of the sheep. He feds them. He leads them. He teaches
them. He protects them. He defends. What He doesn’t do is attack. He lays down
His life for the sheep. He does not take life for His kingdom. He gives life. 27 “My
sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28 and I give
eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out
of My hand.”
He makes it clear. He is the Christ and goes on to make sur they understand
there is no daylight between the two. “29 My Father, who has given them to Me,
is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
30 I and the Father are one.”
The more Jesus tells them about the nature of His Messiahship, the more
angry they become. 31 “The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him. 32 Jesus
answered them, ‘I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of
them are you stoning Me?’ 33 The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do
not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make
Yourself out to be God.’”
The only Jew to be truly dedicated to God the Father was God the Son. He
was dedicated as required by law for the first born son. Luke 2:22 “Then it was
time for their purification offering, as required by the law of Moses after the
birth of a child; so his parents took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.
23 The law of the Lord says, ‘If a woman’s first child is a boy, he must be
dedicated to the Lord.’”
But unlike all other first born sons before Him, Jesus served God the Father
and the sheep of His flock without spot or blemish. He is the Light that came into
the world. He was the only one truly dedicated to both the righteous and only God
and to saving sinful man.
His kingdom was not of this world, but rather to the Kingdom of God, the
Church and to the life of the world to come. He did not come to fight against the
principalities of this world, He came to win the victory of sin, death, and the
power of the devil.
He did this without raising a sword to do it. Peter did, but Jesus didn’t. Jesus
shed no blood but His own. Jesus was the Christ who presented Himself as the Living
and Holy Sacrifice, acceptable to God. He was not conformed to this world. Instead He
proved what the will of God was and is to His questioners and to His disciples. He
showed in Himself that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Amen
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus our Lord.