Swaddled in so very few verses of such oft-ignored apocryphal books, the church of Christ holds the history of Hanukkah. Found nowhere in the Hebrew canon of torah, prophets and writings (the Bible held as holy scripture by rabbinic Judaism today, mirrored in the most-widespread Protestant list of Old Testament books) the ancient story of Hanukkah is known more from sacred traditions than from biblical witness. The Bible mentions no miraculous oil, burning beyond rational expectations. In the Bible there are no dreidels or latkes. Those details may be treasured as holy in faithful hearts, but—like the pious picture of a pregnant Mary “riding a donkey” to Bethlehem—they are never mentioned in scripture itself. The Bible’s story of Hanukkah is simpler, is much closer to earth, is much more like a decommercialized, recentered, rededicated, faithfully-celebrated Christmas.

The first Hanukkah (1 Maccabees 4) looked a bit like the beloved barnyard of baby Jesus’ manger: fieldstones littered God’s backyard like a sheepfold’s rocky paddock; shrubs and weeds were overgrown like thickets on a hilly pasture; there was nowhere for weary travelers to comfortably lay their heads, and so—like a woman in labor—they cried in the night in grief for relief. They cried until, like Gabriel blowing an archangelic trumpet overhead, it became clear that this old, cold, rocky world could also be rebuilt, unfurled with glory to God in the highest and with peace on earth for folks who desperately need it. Centuries before the birth of Jesus—only a few miles away from that little town of Bethlehem—the first Hanukkah (2 Maccabees 10) remembered how terribly scary it had been to wander far from home, like sheep and goats, up hills and down cave-carved valleys, forced by time and circumstance to seek a new and safe address for life.

When Joseph brought his pregnant wife back to his childhood hometown, how much was it like that moment our ancestors in Israel’s faith stepped back into their old city of David, climbed up the temple mount, and waited for Hanukkah to birth a story of redemption, of rededication? It is not the connection between candlelight on a hanukkiah and the bright star on Christmas night that most intimately links Hanukkah and Jesus’ birth: it is the down-to-earth miracle of God’s life being present with us where and when we need it most. God, joining the family of Israel after their faith had been suppressed, filling that Hannukah temple. God, joining the family of Jesus—the family we are made in Jesus­­—filling that manger and dedicating that incarnate temple.

Throughout his life, Jesus kept the festival of Hanukkah (St John 10). With great faith and with spiritual devotion, Jesus visited the temple in Jerusalem—a temple that had been rebuilt and refurbished over a few hundred years since its rededication by the Maccabees. Jesus knew the stones so lovingly built up would one day fall again. Jesus knew that just as the temple had been raised and rubbled and raised again, he would mirror its ministry in his own life: raised from the manger, razed by the cross, raised in resurrection. Jesus would dedicate God’s life in his own life, death and resurrection to provide an icon of hope for all God’s people when our temples, like Jesus’ body, await this re-lifting up—this rededication—this Hanukkah.

This winter, the church of Christ will celebrate his nativity again on December 25. In a rare miracle of union between our Christian liturgical timetable and Judaism’s lunar calendar, the evening of December 25 will coincide with the sunset-start of the Hebrew day of Chislev 25. So, at sundown, as Christians celebrate the birth of Christ, Jewish families (like Mary and Joseph would be as our neighbors today) will light the first Hanukkah candles and dedicate their prayers to God’s presence on earth among us all. Rather than divide us, for an exceptional moment our separate religions will draw closer—draw us together—build us up as one—dedicate us in Israel’s faith for a shared moment as family with the God of Abraham, the God we trust to be with us, the God we praise as Emmanuel.

In such a shared hope and joy of that holy day to come,

Pastor Joel