For me and my house, we will serve Jesus and have been from the day we were married. From the day my heart was changed and I felt the acceptance and love of the Father, I will never go back.  Jesus is the only way to enter into heaven.  

So we have been studying all the different feasts that God gave in the scripture. Some may say those are Jewish feasts and not part of the new covenant. There are many references of Jesus going to Jerusalem during many of the feast times. 

Jerusalem is not the place you would want to go during a feast. There would be millions of people and animals for sacrifice, in that city. There would not be room for you and your group you are traveling with, just like Mary during the census at the time of Jesus’s birth. 

Jesus did not go to just “win” people to his cause but to celebrate the feast for himself. One account Jesus brothers asked if he was going to the feast. Jesus told his brother that he would not be going and then later snuck down to the feast. 

“But after his brothers had gone up to the feast, then he also went up, not publicly but in private. The Jews were looking for him at the feast, and saying, “Where is he?”

‭‭John‬ ‭7:10-11‬ ‭ESV‬‬

The weekly Sabbath is among the Lord’s feast. The others are the Feast of Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Firstfruits, the Feast of the Harvest, the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles. These feasts were given by God to Moses in Leviticus for us to do annually. 

In John 10 there is a mention of another feast.  The Feast of Dedication, what is this feast?

“At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon.”

‭‭John‬ ‭10:22-23‬ ‭ESV‬‬

This feast is also called the Festival of Lights or Hanukkah. Hanukkah in Hebrew means dedication. 

About 168 years before Christ the Greeks king Antiochus IV Epiphanes came into Jerusalem and desecrating the temple by the offering of pigs on the altar and set up an idol of Zeus.  The Greek soldiers were forcing the Hebrew people to denounce God and to prove they did they needed to eat pork or die. Thousands were put to death.  The Hebrew people and culture were about to be eliminated again.

There arose a family Led by the Jewish priest Mattathias and his five sons, a large-scale rebellion broke out against Antiochus. When Matthathias died in 166 B.C., his son Judah, known as Judah Maccabee (“the Hammer”). Over the next two years, he was able to drive the Greeks out of Jerusalem and reclaimed the temple.  They clean out and dedicate the temple for God’s uses again. During the two years revolt, they were unable to celebrate Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) so the feast of the dedication celebrated the length of Sukkot.

For more information on Hanukka see the History Chanel https://www.history.com/topics/holidays/hanukkah

Hanukkah is also known as the Festival of Lights because of them relighting the temple lampstand.  Hanukkah is celebrated with lighting of candles and displaying them in the window of your home, that your light may shine into a dark world. There are nine candles, one for each day of the celebration and one taller candle called the “servant candle” the one that lights the other candles.  Jesus is our servant candle and we are ignited by Him. 

We celebrate the Christ of Christmas on December 25th as does most Christian but we also celebrate Hanukkah. If the Hebrew people would have been eliminated we would not have Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, that is worth celebrating. 

Application 

• Celebrate God every day and I all you do honor him. 
• Seek God in how to let your light shine in the new year.