Today was Christmas and the first day of Hanukkah (how often does they coincide like this?). What is this day about?
Christians around the world commemorate the arrival of Jesus born in lowly conditions in Bethlehem. God come to earth. God had not abandoned the earth to its sins but was personally intervening to deal to it. Jesus’ Hebrew name, Yeshua, means ‘salvation’.
Going back to about 165 BC, we find the origins of Hanukkah. The land of Israel was under the rule of the Greeks. Under the rule of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Torah was outlawed. The Temple was desecrated. The Jews rose up in rebellion and, against impossible odds, overthrew the Greeks! They rededicated the Temple and that is what is remembered at this time of year. Hanukkah means ‘dedication’.
At Hanukkah, there’s a traditional game called the dreidel. There are four letters on a dreidel: nun (N), gimel (G), he (H), and shin (Sh). They stand for the phrase, Nes Gadol Haya Sham, “A great miracle happened there”. (In Israel, the shin is substituted for a pe (P) for Nes Gadol Haya Po, “A great miracle happened here”) God intervened miraculously to save his people from the Greeks so they could worship him instead of idols. In the same way, an even greater miracle happened 160ish years later in the birth of Jesus. These are just two examples of how God has been at work in our world. How have you seen God working in your life in the past year?
