Chanukah to Passover

 

We all know that Easter and Passover coincide, but did you ever think about the fact we celebrate Christ’s birth around Chanukah?  As I write this it is 2005 and Christmas and the start of Chanukah start on the same day.  Is there a connection between Christmas and Chanukah?  Do Chanukah and Passover connect?

What is Chanukah, otherwise called the Feast of Dedication?  Chanukah is Hebrew for dedication.  It is a lavish festival commemorating the purification and reconstruction of the Jerusalem temple and dedication of the new alter by Judas Maccabeus in 165/164 BC.  Three years to the day after Antiochus IV Epiphanes had desecrated it by decreeing pagan sacrifices there.  That date was the 25^th day of Chislev which is around the November/December time frame.

We were desecrated by the sin of Adam and Eve.  Christ came to reconstruct our relationship to God.  He came to purify us through His blood.  Just as God’s temple at Jerusalem was reconstructed and purified, we God’s temple are to be reconstructed and purified through Christ.

Chanukah was commemorated with mirth and gladness, singing of thanksgiving hymns and processions in which palms and other greenery were carried.  When Jesus entered Jerusalem that final time before His death on the cross and resurrection, He was met by singing of praises and branches of greenery and palms spread out on the road before Him (Matthew 21).  After His entry He cleansed the temple “And He entered the temple and began to cast out those who were selling, saying to them ‘It is written; And My house shall be a house of Prayer, but you have made it a den of robbers.’”  Luke 19:45-46.

Mankind had made God’s creation a robbers den.  Christ came to purify and cleanse us.  “For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, ‘I WILL DWELL IN THME AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY WILL BE MY PEOPLE.’”  2^nd Corinthians 6:16.  We are God’s temple and we had to be purified before the relationship could be restored.

Around 70 AD the feast was observed by the lighting of lamps in private houses.  These lamps were lit on successive nights, thus the designation “Feast of Lights.”  “Again therefore Jesus spoke to them saying ‘I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.’”  John 8:12.

In the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5, Jesus tells us we too as His followers are the light of the world.  We are to let our light shine before men in such a way that they may see our good works, and glorify our Father who is in Heaven.  We are to stand as a purified temple of God where His glory can be seen at all times.

He came to purify us and ultimately did that at the time of Passover.  God’s angel of death passed over the Israelites in Egypt when they put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts.  It is now Christ’s blood that is on the doorposts of us His holy temple.  For Christ is the Lamb of God; the perfect sacrifice.

It is on the occasion of the Feast of Dedication that Jesus described Himself as the Messiah, the Son of God.  “At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem; it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon.  The Jews therefore gathered around Him and were saying to Him, ‘How long will You keep us in suspense?  If you are the Christ, tell us plainly’.  Jesus answered them, ‘I told you, and you do not believe, the works that I do in My Father’s name, these bear witness of Me.  But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep.  My sheep hear My voice and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.  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.  I and the Father are one.’”  John 10:22-30.

The celebration of a new life, reconstructed by Jesus, begins with Chanukah and continues through Passover.  Are you one of His sheep?  If so hear His voice then repent and open yourself up for purification and be cleansed.  Go out in live a life that glorifies God, for He is dwelling with us in His cleansed temple.  We are to let out light shine to the rest of the world that they may find their way out lf the darkness.  Make your life a perpetual feast of light.


 Read Brian's columns at:
   http://www.examiner.com/faith-and-culture-in-los-angeles/brian-knapp

Author of:

In The Hands Of The Father: My Life With God
Now available in ebook format:


Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Google


If you prefer hard cover or paperback use the following links:

Barnes & Noble

Amazon

Xulon Press

If you cannot afford a copy email me at bdknapp@yahoo.com and I will get send you a copy of my writings contained in the book. God Bless.
  Read Brian's columns at:
  http://www.examiner.com/faith-and-culture-in-los-angeles/brian-knapp

Please read my other writings listed on the right of this page or read my columns. I periodically add writings in both places. My only goal is to share what it means to have a amazing relationship with God and how I have achieved that in the hope you to will be able to start on that path. It is a journey that I am still on, join me.