No Hanukkah…No Christmas
written by: Doug Bartlett
The kind, elderly grandfather, who some say looked a lot like Santa Claus, gathered his Messianic Jewish grandchildren around himself in the form of a semi-circle. He was about to explain to them the connection between Hanukkah, a Jewish holiday, and Christmas, a Christian holiday.
“Listen up, kids. Like myself, you have the best of both worlds. You were born Jewish, but you have all willingly accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, which makes us Jewish Christians or Messianic Jews. You need to realize if there were no Hanukkah, a Jewish holiday, there would be no Christmas, a Christian holiday.”
“But how is this possible, Grandpa? One holiday is Jewish, and the other is Christian. Certainly, there’s no relationship between the two.”
“There most certainly is my child. Let me explain. This event occurred approximately two centuries before the birth of Jesus. Alexander the Great had died after conquering most of the known world. He had no sons to leave his empire to, so it went to his four generals. One general, Antiochus, invaded where our ancestors, the Jews, were living, and he intended to wipe out the entire Jewish population. He starts by destroying their faith in Judaism. He burns their Holy Books, their Torahs, forces them to work on their Holy Day, the Sabbath, not allowing them to eat only kosher foods, not being allowed to practice circumcision, and he actually desecrates their Holy Temple by sacrificing a pig inside the Holy of Holies…
His army then goes throughout the land and forces the people to bow down before him or lose their lives. At one village, he had a Jewish priest come out to the public square to sacrifice a pig in front of all the people. Well, this time he went too far. The officer handed the priest a knife in order to kill the pig. However, the priest refused to sacrifice the pig and turned the knife on the officer, resulting in his death.
The priest had some sons, by the name of the Maccabees, who revolted and killed the rest of the soldiers that were there in the square. This was the beginning of a four-year battle. The Jews were outnumbered sixty to one, but because God was on their side and what we now call guerrilla warfare, they were victorious.
They took possession of the Temple again. This meant they would need to rededicate it. This would include re-lighting the menorah that stood in the Holy Place. However, there was a problem. It took special oil to light the menorah, and they would need to light it for eight consecutive days, but they only had enough oil for one day. Should they go ahead and light the menorah and see what happens, or should they wait until they make more special oil?
Well, they decided to go ahead and light the menorah with the small portion of oil they had… and guess what? The menorah stayed lit for all eight days. That is why today we light our menorah, a special menorah called a hanukkiah.
This causes us to remember the miracle that happened in the Temple and the miracle of overcoming a world power with just a ragtag army.”
“I still don’t get it, Grandpa. What’s that got to do with Christmas?”
“Don’t you see, my child, if we didn’t have Hanukkah, it would have meant we have nothing to celebrate because the Jewish people would have been destroyed. If the Jewish people had been destroyed, Jesus would not have been born. If Jesus had not been born, there would be no Christmas. No Jesus, no Christmas. No Hanukkah….. No Christmas.”
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