It's housecleaning season. Hanukkah began
December 10 and celebrates the cleansing and rededication of the Temple
following the liberation of Jerusalem from Greek Rule in 165 BCE. It seems
to me that it is a good time to begin doing a little cleansing of the current
temple, which has become polluted with all sorts of false mindsets and
confusion.
Have you ever wondered why history seems to repeat
itself? I think it is partly because the Lord is a circular thinker. We
think of history as moving from point A to point B in a linear fashion
but the Lord is not a linear God. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning
and the End. The end and the beginning meet in a full circle. His perspective
is from every perspective but we're only able to comprehend one level at
a time usually. That is why Scripture is like poetry. It can be read on
a very basic, very concrete level or it can be read on a very high level
with multiple interpretations, applications and implications.
Such is our life. As a child we learn very basic,
concrete lessons that we learn again as adults on a more complex level.
For example, the lesson of sharing at the age of three becomes more complex
as we become aware of the needs of others in the world and learn to share
our blessings. When we marry we learn new lessons in sharing our lives.
By the time we reach middle age, hopefully we have begun to learn to share
our wisdom and knowledge and to give back to the world in less tangible
ways. The lesson of sharing builds on itself and becomes increasingly complex,
abstract and COMPLETE. The same principle applies to our individual spiritual
life and maturity.
Paul said, "When I was a child, I talked like
a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became
a man, I put childish ways behind me. (1 Cor. 13: 11) It is time for the
Bride to put childish mindsets away and to begin to think like an adult.
The Lord is not interested in marrying a child. He wants a helpmate that
is a true match for Him - a wife of full stature. In the past we have known
the Lord as father, friend and brother but now it is time to know Him as
husband and lover. This requires maturity.
Well, history is the record of the corporate lessons
in maturing of the Body of Christ. From Adam and Eve to the present day
we have been learning essentially the same lessons over and over through
the historical events of the world on progressively more mature and complete
levels. We are now entering into the fullness of time when the Bride will
become "perfect" and enter into the age of MATURITY. She no longer has
to traverse the circle of history but comes "full circle", bringing the
lessons of history to complete fruition and birthing Kingdom Truth into
the earth in fullness.
So let's look at the history of Hanukkah with
an eye to gain maturity from its lessons so that we are not doomed to go
around this particular circle again and again.
Antiochus Epiphanes, a harsh, cruel and ruthless
man, had an ambition to have a one world power in which he was the king
of a Hellenistic world. In fact, Antiochus believed he was "the visible
god." As part of his attempt to rule the world, Antiochus signed a peace
treaty with a brother of the high priest of Israel. Joshua (who later changed
his name to the Greek name Jason) supposedly offered Antiochus the power
to rule over Israel in return for protecting Israel. What he really
"sold" Israel for was the opportunity for him to become high priest. In
other words, POWER. He built a gymnasium in Jerusalem dedicated to Greek
athletics which would become a recruitment center where citizens of the
world and Israel could sign up to become citizens of Antioch in significant
alliance with the Greek world government.
Does any of this sound familiar yet? Well, we'll
get into the correlation with today when we start cleaning house.
Antiochus was making progress on building his
world empire when his armies were successful in conquering the Egyptian
kingdom south of Israel. He became infuriated when he received a message
from Caesar in Rome giving him the ultimatum of giving up Egypt or being
attacked by Rome. Antiochus tried to stall and negotiate out of it but
was forced to make a decision when the messenger took out a sword and drew
a circle with it around him. Antiochus was told: "You may not leave
the circle until you give your answer back to Caesar." Infuriated at having
to back down Antiochus marched up from Egypt through Israel and found that
the people in Jerusalem were fighting over his kingdom. Having received
an incorrect message, they thought he was dead in Egypt.
Antiochus could have used a little training in
anger management. He was so mad that he ordered his lead commander to destroy
Jerusalem, killing thousands of Jews and taking many of them into slavery.
They hacked and knocked over the porticoes in the Temple and robbed many
of the Temple vessels. He marched into the Temple and built a statue in
the outer courtyard to the Greek god Zeus. The statue had a face
that looked amazingly like Antiochus. Antiochus sacrificed a pig to the
statue and sprinkled the blood in the Holy of Holies. He poured its broth
on the Holy Scrolls and then cut them to pieces and burned them. Next he
ordered his men to make the entire Temple a shrine to Zeus.
To understate it, Antiochus broke his treaty with
Israel in which he had promised to protect her. He instituted a new law
abolishing all the religious practices of Israel. Whole families would
be killed if a Torah scroll was found in the house or if they were caught
eating "Kosher". Many apostate priests accepted this new law and Israel
became poisoned as it spread from town to town.
It was time for a Braveheart. Enter Mattathias,
an old man in priestly garments from a nowhere town called Modi'in. One
of Antiochus's commanders set up a statue of Zeus in Modi'in and thought
that if he chose a leader that the people respected to be the first to
sacrifice to it that all the people would follow. He picked the wrong old
man. Even though the commander attempted to bribe him with the promise
of being rewarded with great riches and authority, Mattathias replied that
he and his family and brothers would not depart from the law of Moses even
if the whole world went along with the new law. Out of the crowd, a counterfeit,
an apostate priest, stepped up to the altar to offer the pig for sacri-
fice. Mattathias knew that if the priest was successful and the people
went along with it that they would lose the Torah and they would all fall
away from the law. Holy anger rose up in Mattathias as he drew his
sword and slew the false priest and the commander. At the same time his
sons rose up against the troop of men and killed them all.
Mattathias, his sons and supporters headed for the
hills and began a guerrilla war against the Greeks and their Jewish allies.
Jewish leaders were hostile to Matta- thias' movement and the community
was so far into the process of assimilation that they were ambivalent about
the loss of their faith. It took three years for them to gain enough support
to be a serious threat and Mattathias died of old age passing on his leadership
to his son Judah the Maccabee. Judah lead his troops against the troops
of Antiochus and finally liberated Jerusalem on Kislev 25, 165 BCE on the
third anniversary of its desecration by Antiochus.
Judah reclaimed the Temple and had it cleansed
and rededicated. It is said they could only find enough oil to light the
Temple menorah for one day and it would take eight days to prepare new
oil. The oil miraculously burned for eight days and the light never went
out. That is why the Hanukkah candles are lit for eight days.
History has brought us back around to the lessons
of Hanukkah. In the spirit of the festival I am going to send out a series
of articles over the next few days that I hope will begin to cleanse some
of our faulty mindsets and re-light the lamp with some fresh oil.
In the next installment we'll look at how the
story of Hanukkah is the story of where we are today.
