Parables Christian Ministry Library

Lesson #200 - HANUKA- Should We or Shouldn’t We?

Part #3 - Conclusion
Avram Yehoshua

IS HANUKA THE JEWISH ANSWER TO CHRISTMAS?

Hanuka is nothing like Christmas so it can’t and shouldn’t be  compared. Christmas is very pagan and celebrates the birth of the  pagan Christ from the stump of an evergreen tree, in the dead of  winter. This symbolizes the pagan Christ’s victory over the darkness  of winter as Dec. 25th is the first day that ancient man could  determine when the amount of light in the day increases, from having  decreased from mid-summer. The god of Christmas was called ‘the  Christ’ (what we would call the false Christ or Messiah), and was  also seen as the son of the sun god. The sun was the greatest object  of veneration.

Hanuka is a historical time that remembers when the God of Israel  delivered the Jewish people from annihilation. The only thing the two  celebrations have in common is that they are both in December.

As for the giving of ‘Hanuka gifts’, I discourage this as it’s only a  recent Jewish custom that has bled over into Hanuka because it’s so  close to Christmas. The Jewish children would tell their parents of  all the toys that the Christian children got for Christmas, and so  the Jewish parents began to give their children gifts for each night  of Hanuka. But it’s not part of Hanuka proper and we should steer  ourselves away from that. It’s not only expensive and unnecessary,  it’s pollutes and corrupts a Jewish holiday. If you want to give  gifts to your children you can do that any day of the year. Please  don’t tie it to Hanuka, the Feast of Dedication to Yeshua. It’s a  time of giving ourselves to Yeshua, not giving gifts to our children.

CONCLUSION

Hanuka is an historical event that we Jewish people (and all those  grafted into Israel too), can celebrate as another time when God  delivered His people. It’s in recognition of this that the  celebration takes place. Hanuka means dedication and points to the re- dedicating of the Temple after it was taken back from the hands of  the wicked Syrian king. It has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas.

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