Why I Celebrate Hanukkah

Yesterday I went and picked my daughter up from her friend’s house.  Amongst all the many Christmas decorations ornamenting their shelves sat a beautiful Menorah. I immediately felt a

kinship with my daughter’s friend’s Mother. A fellow Christian celebrating Hanukkah, and why not?

I celebrate Hanukkah because it is a celebration of Faith, of Miracles, and of Temples. All things that we should celebrate.  Christ attended Hanukkah celebrations, in the bible it is referred to as the feat of the dedication. What is the history of Hanukkah?

The old testament ends in about  420 BC and the New Testament starts in about 1 BC. What happened in those 420 years?  This is the time of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Apocrypha. In about 160 BC Syria overtook Jerusalem, and like so often was the custom of those who took over Jerusalem they made practicing Judaism against the law. Syria took over the temple, and filled it with statues of their pagan Gods, and insisted on submission to the pagan God. There were some who resisted. Judas Maccabees was one of these so was Judith (a woman prophetess).  Judas Maccabee lead a rebellion, that knocked down the statues of the God’s and then they fled to the mountains to hide.  While they were in the mountains word spread that they were there and faithful Jews from all over joined them. Judith was in a city in the out skirts. Her city was surrounded by the Syrian army and they were just waiting for the city to surrender.  When the city was about to surrender she told them that they all lacked faith in God, and that it would be better to die faithful than to surrender to the Syrians.  She then went out to the leader of the Syrian Army brought him loads of cheese and whine, and when he drunk himself silly she chopped off his head and brought it back to the city. The Army fled, and the citizens of the city went and joined with Maccabees.  After a while the small army went and reclaimed the city from the Assyrians a Miracles in and off itself.  The first thing they did after winning the city back was to clear the temple of the Pagan Gods.  They wanted to start the temple back up, but only could find enough oil for one day. As part of the temple ceremony they were not supposed to let the lanterns burn out, they need to keep them full of oil at all times Oil takes seven days to purify, but they really didn’t want to wait to have their temple back.  They decided to go ahead and relight and rededicate their temple.  The second miracle happened, the oil lasted for the full additional seven days until they were able to have more.

Wow what an amazing story of Faith, commitment to following the Lord, Miracles and blessing for the faith and following the Lord. And the importance of temples. 

While these events were not recorded in Canonized scripture, Hanukkah is known as the Feast of Dedication in the Bible, Christ attended this annual celebration.  The celebration is a feast that God still provides Miracles, a Celebration that they could once again worship in the temple.  So it was

very exciting to find a fellow Christian who celebrates it as well. We should all still be celebrating the good news that God still preforms Miracles, that he goes before us and fights our fights for us.  And even more important that we have temples to worship in.  I love celebrating Hanukkah!

Hanukkah is very low key for us.  We light the Menorah and talk about the miracles we have seen in our lives. We will visit Temple Square, what could be more fitting the temple all adorned in lights. Traditional Hanukkah foods include fried foods to celebrate the oil lasting for eight days, and cheese to celebrate the faithful example of Judith. Some of the fried foods include latkes (traditionally potato, however this year I found an apple latke that I plan on trying) and doughnuts. Mozzarella sticks that combine both the cheese and fried foods.   There are plenty of recipes found on the internet. We have had several menorah’s; my kids do a good job of breaking them. I finally got this mini one, which just uses standard birthday cake candles, which makes supplying the candles a whole lot easier because it was hard for me to find menorah candles around here.

 

Hanukkah this year starts at sun down on Sunday December 2.