Are we dedicated - A pre-Hanukkah meditation...

In Yochanan 10:22, we come to what is considered to be the first historical reference to Hanukkah, as Yeshua went to Jerusalem at the time of Hanukkah. The events of Hanukkah took place after the conclusion of the writing of the Tanakh and therefore are not covered in the Hebrew Bible.

The crowds in Jerusalem ask Yeshua:

"How much longer are you going to keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us publicly!" (Yn 10:24)


Yeshua responds:

"I have already told you, and you don't trust me. The works I do in my Father's name testify on my behalf (Yn 10:25)


When asked about his messiahship, Yeshua pointed to the works that He did in his Father’s name were the demonstration of His messianic claims. It was His dedication to doing G-d’s will that marked Yeshua out as the Messiah and true servant of G-d, who like his forebearers the Maccabees were determined to do G-d’s will by staying faithful to following Torah.

The Maccabees were faced with the Syrian-Greeks' call to assimilate into Hellenistic culture and leave Torah life behind including Shabbat, kashrut and circumcision. Some of the Jews gave in and left behind Torah living and fully embraced Hellenism and assimilated away from their G-d ordained way of life, but fortunately for us there was Mattathias and his sons who said "NO" and chose to fight and lay down their lives for Torah. This fight for Torah living helped to preserve Jewish life and faith at that critical time in history and it kept alive Jewish faith and life that allowed for a pious Jewish family to travel to Bethlehem about 160 years later for the birth of our righteous Messiah, Yeshua (so then Hanukkah is important for both Jews and Christians).

We who are building a Messianic Judaism are standing like the Maccabees as people with a choice to continue holding to a G-d honoring, Torah faithful life, walking following of our Messiah. We face a call to us from the Church to embrace our place as Christians (of Jewish heritage) and abandon Torah faithfulness and a call from the larger Jewish world to reject Yeshua faith and "return" to the Jewish world.

Both of these choices are wrong and would be actions taking us out of G-d's plan.

We cannot embrace a Christian identity that would over time mean an end of a distinct Jewish presence for Yeshua within the body of Messiah. We also cannot abandon our faith in Yeshua as our Messiah, which would be dishonoring G-d by denying the Messiah that He sent.

So then we must fight the call to leave our distinct identity as Messianic Judaism, a distinctly Jewish, Torah faithful way of life that honors Yeshua as Messiah and L-rd.

At this time of focusing on the dedication of the holy Temple in the time of the Maccabees are we willing to dedicate ourselves to stand where we are for Messianic Judaism and even fight for this profound place that G-d has placed us in His plan?

I sure hope we are...

May you have a blessed Hanukkah!


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