Why Should We Observe Hannukah?

I know a lot of people who have been asking me this question lately, especialy my close family members. The answer that I have been giving, and it has been a good response is located in John 10:22

And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter.

As I have begun to take a closer look at this wonderful miracle that YHVH did during a time that many theologians have written off as a time that the Lord did not speak thru His prophets for 400 years. Allow me to explain;
The Greco-Syrian army had taken over Jerusalem. The wicked emperor Antichius began to pass anti Jewish laws forbidding any practice of Torah. Imagine, no Sabbath, no circumcision, no longer able to eat healthy according to the Word of God. If you were caught doing any of these things or any thing that was considered "jewish", you would be put to death. There were many Jews who adopted these Greek practices whole heartedly. But there was a remnant who decided to take a stand against tyranny and flat out refused to bow down to Greek gods or eat unclean meats. There is one particular testimony that truly catches my interest. There was a woman named Hannah who had 7 sons. She watched as one by one the Greek soldiers murdered her children as she watched, all of them refusing to bow down to a statue of zues or eat the swine that was sacrificed on the altar in the temple. Hanna's last son was offered a chance to live, all he had to do was retrieve the general's ring from the base of the statute of zues. The boy refused deciding he would abstain from the very appearance of evil. That young boy sacrificed his life for truth. That he would not even comprimise. Afterward, Hannah was killed because she too flat out refused to worship a false god.

How many of us would have done the same? Would we be able to watch as our children die one by one because of our service to YHVH? There are many stories like this one but the crux of the story comes from the Macabee brothers whos father led the revolt against the mighty Greek army. Town by town, this family led a revolt with little to no weapons and fought with a band of farmers and sheep herders. The amazing thing is this small band of people continued to win. It wasn't what they had done, it was the Lord who had His hand upon them. When the father of the Macabees died, he charged them with continuing the fight. And they did, all the way to Jerusalem and freed the temple.

The temple of the Lord had been ransacked and decicrated. The altar had been trashed with the the sacrifices of pigs and humans. The people had the daunting task of cleaning up and replacing all of the elements of the temple that had been destroyed. A new menora (the temple candles) had been made but there was only one small vial of kosher oil left in the temple and it would be 8 days until more could be made available. The brothers decided to light the menora any way and trust G-d because that one vial of oil was only supposed to last for 24 hours. Here is the other miracle: that one vial lasted for 8 days. To comemorate the lamp staying lit for the 8 days, the Macabees declared a time of rememberace for 8 days to remember the rededication of the temple of the Lord.

I know it may not mean a lot to our brothers in church but had this small band of people had not stood up for the Lord, we would not have had a line of Judah and therefore no Messiah. No Messiah, no salvation. No salvation, no reason for the church. (good or bad) No church, no reason for anyone to come over to the New World for the freedom of religion. When you think about this little known "jewish" holiday, there is so much to be thankful for. 1 Corinthians 3:16 says:

Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

Our bodies are supposed to be the temple of the Lord. We as a people have compromised our faith for years. Whether we realize it or not, we have inheirited lies just as Jeremiah 16:12 says. These 8 days that we light our candles in memory of the awesome miracle that G-d has done in a time when it is believed that G-d was not even speaking should be more than enough of a reason to at least look at it. If not, then remember that John 10:22 records that Jesus went into the temple preaching and healing people during the feast of dedication (Hannukah).