The Festival of Lights

 Then came Hanukkah in Yerushalayim. It was winter,  and Yeshua was walking around inside the Temple area, in Shlomo’s Colonnade. John 10:22-23 Complete Jewish Bible

Tomorrow at sundown the Festival of Lights, Hanukkah begins and will end Sunday December 21 at sundown. Today’s verses are the only place Hanukkah is mentioned in the Protestant Bible, but can be found in 1 and 2 Maccabees. It tells the account of when one days worth of Temple oil lasted for eight days until a new batch could be made.

There are so many lessons we can learn from this, the bravery and fortitude of the Maccabees, the faithfulness and power of God and the resilience of those who follow and trust in Him. Can you imagine what it would be like to have the ruling authority to oppress you constantly and come into your church and do everything they could to defile all we know as sacred? If you can, then you know the spiritual pain the Romans inflicted upon the Jews. But their strength to fight them was not of their human strength, but supernatural strength and endurance that eventually took back control of the Temple.

But taking it back was only the beginning, now it was time to clean things up and reestablish true worship of Jehovah God from His Temple. There was just one problem, the Lamp had to be filled with oil so that the light would never go out again. But there was only enough oil for one day. So they took the oil they had left, and prayed for God to make a way where there seemed to be no way. And because the stepped out and lit the Temple Menorah then prayed for God to take over, God honored their prayers. This is should lead us to ask, what are we waiting for God to do, when He’s waiting for us to step up and out, then trust that He can finish and do what only He can do. He doesn’t usually ask us to do big things, just enough to show our faith in Him. Think about it, even the man with the withered hand was asked to raise it. Take time to stop and listen to what God is telling us to do, then step out on His leading and watch Him answer way beyond what we can only imagine. Then stand in awe of His faithfulness and praise Him.