Messiah in Chanukkah Chapter 16
- Liberation from Idolatry in three years
- Chanukkah means Dedication
- The World is Possessed by an oppressive nature
- A Warning against Social Idolatry
Liberation from Idolatry in three years:
A major theme of Chanukkah is liberating oneself from the oppression of idolatry. It took the people of Israel three years to successfully revolt against their oppressors (167-164 BCE). Thereafter, the defiled temple was cleansed and the worship of God was reinstated (25 Kislev, 164 BCE).
The three year period of time it took to liberate the people of Israel and cleanse God’s Temple is prophetic. It is the same amount of time it took the Messiah Yeshua (27-30 CE) to put an end to idolatry, cleanse the Temple and reinstate true worship among the people of Israel. He accomplished this by his atoning sacrifice for sin that in the eyes of God cleanses the temple of our hearts, souls, and minds.
Chanukkah means Dedication:
Interestingly the most important highlight of this winter feast is not the Jewish military success and the people of Israel’s liberation from idolatry but the re-dedication of the temple. The crowning event of Chanukkah was the reigniting of the Divine flame that flowed out of the Golden Lampstand in the Holy Place in the Temple.
The supreme theme of the winter festival is the theme of illumination.
The Chanukkah narrative multiple themes of oppression, fighting for independence, liberation, and illumination are seminal terms frequently used in the Tanakh. in addition to the celebration of the first Winter Festival Chanukkah (164 CE) that we Jews celebrate to this day there is a second, yet future, second Spring Festival Chanukkah that will be observed in the future messianic age; that is found in the writings of the prophet Ezekiel.
*Read about the prophet Ezekiel’s Chanukkah II here.
The World is Possessed by an oppressive nature:
Chanukkah teaches us about the oppressive nature of the world. Although those of us who are followers of the Messiah aspire to be good citizens, nevertheless, we are exhorted to be under no illusions about the evil potentials of human social life. Yochanan ben Zebedeyah, Endowment of the Grace of Adonai, sums up well what the world’s philosophy is when he characterizes it as an evil system that obsesses on:
כי כל אשר בעולם – תאות בשרים, תאות העינים וגאות הנכסים – לא מין האב הוא כי אים מין העולם. פ
“Because everything in the world – the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of possessions – is not the nature of the Father, because it is the nature of the world.”
Humanity is dominated by a sin nature that exists in rebellion against the heavenly Father. Humankind is motivated by wrong desires. The human populace as a whole is easily enticed to do evil. Instead of good, arrogance, pride, self-aggrandizement, and self-glorification are at present the crowning aspirations of humankind. Remarkably, Yochanan says: “We know through experience that “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” Therefore, it is written:
האינכם יודעים כי ידידות עם העולם היא איבה לאלוהים? לפיכך, מי שרוצה להיות ידיד לעולם הופך לאויב אלוהים. פ
“Don’t you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wants to be a friend to the world becomes an enemy of God.”
A Warning against Social Idolatry:
The Chanukkah narrative warns us to be aware of the threat of social idolatry.
The evil ruler in the Chanukkah narrative not only forbade the Jews to worship God but he blasphemously claimed God was actually the pagan deity Zeus. Abominably the wicked Syrian dictator sacrificed a defiling *pig on the sacred altar and even placed an idol of Zeus in the temple’s Holy of Holies. The insane one (epimanes) claimed he was the manifestation (epiphany) of God in human form. In so doing Antiochus falsely claimed he was the Messiah.
*The pig is a symbol of man’s fallen self-life that lives in rebellion to God.