Hanuka [some spell it Hanukkah, others Chanukkah] this year begins December 8th and is celebrated for eight days.

 

Hanuka celebrates the mighty deliverance of God through the Maccabees, who fought against an evil Syrian king called Antiochus IV Epiphanes. He wanted all the Jews to walk in Hellenistic culture and to worship the Greek gods and goddesses. He murdered the Jewish people who wouldn’t. Anyone who kept the Sabbath or circumcision or had Scriptures in their possession was sentenced to death.

Outnumbered by trained armies, the priests and people of Judah, under Judah Maccabee, fought and won battle after battle, due to their faith in God. They were able to re-take possession of the Temple and cleanse it from the idol statue of the Syrian king Antiochus IV. He had erected a statue of Zeus with his face in on it and wanted everyone to worship him as Zeus incarnate, hence the title Epiphanes (God appears or manifests). The Jewish people called him Epimanes (the madman), a play on Epiphanes.

 

There is a biblical reason why Hanuka lasts for eight days. When Moses consecrated Aaron and his sons for the priesthood, and the Tabernacle was initially dedicated for service, there’s an eight day period (Lev. 8–9). Seven days were the days of consecration and dedication of the priests and the Tabernacle, and the eighth day was the first day of official service. This was what was on the minds of the Torah observant Maccabees and the reason for the eight days because the word ‘hanuka’ means ‘dedication.’ As such, Hanuka becomes for us an eight day period of re-dedication of ourselves (the temple of God; 1st Cor. 3:16-17; 6:19) to God the Father in the name of His Son, Messiah Yeshua, asking Him to cleanse us of our idols, that we might be fully consecrated and dedicated to Him!
 

Hanuka is a holiday commemorating a time when Yahveh moved mightily for the salvation of His Jewish people. It’s a real historical event.
 

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). With Yeshua declaring at Hanuka, in the Temple in Jerusalem that day, that He was the visible manifestation of the Living God, Yeshua was authenticating Hanuka for all of us and our children.

 

"Chag Urim Sameach!"
(Happy Festival of Lights.)