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This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Johnathan Hernandez and Garry Schick.

Garry Schick
So good to be together and here we are in the midst of Advent, and today is actually the first day of Hanukkah, which as Christians, we've all heard of it. We know it's a Jewish holiday. And I came up with this question because today is the first day of it. I thought, what I bet a lot of people wonder, "what is Hanukkah, and why don't I find it in my Bible?" I mean, at least in the Old Testament. And so Jonathan, you want to get us started on that, and does it have any significance for Christians?

Jonathan Hernandez
Yeah, so I think my extent of Hanukkah was what you said. I knew that it was a Jewish holiday and that was really a lot of it. And so we look at the word, Hanukkah, it's a Hebrew word for dedication. And so this was the Festival of Lights I think, is what it's also known as. So Hanukkah is an eight day Jewish holiday celebrating the rededication of the temple in Jerusalem that happened in the second century BC. And so they had this candle that they had lit, but they only had, this was during the rebuilding or whatever of the temple, and they only had enough oil for one day. And so they light the candle and the miracle of it was that the candle lasted the eight days. And so we see that that's kind of where we see the eight days of Hanukkah or the different significance in there. And so I guess we don't really see it in the Bible. If you look into the Bible, you're not going to see something about Hanukkah. But if you were to look in the book of Maccabee's, I believe it was, that you can see some of the things that had happened here. And, you know, how can we as believers, how is Hanukkah celebrated in light of being believers in Christ? And so we can look at Hanukkah as a testament of God's faithfulness to the Jewish people by preserving them through war and persecution. His faithfulness and fulfilling his promises that He produces the Messiah through the line of David. And so there's a lot of things that, if we look at all of these different things and what's celebrated during Hanukkah, we can see where as Christians, we can celebrate some of those things also. So I mean, I think that's a lot of things. We can look at it and celebrate with the Jewish people through some of those things too, and encourage them through their time of celebration. It's not a time for us to just kind of sit back and, "oh, I don't understand," or things like that. I know when I was in high school, I had a friend that would celebrate it and I would just kind of, "oh, that's cool." I didn't understand it. I also wasn't a believer at that time either. But how can we help them celebrate it? Also through just encouraging them and being part of that. One of the other things is that, Hanukkah reminds us of God's faithfulness. Like I said, past, present, and future to His church. What is He doing? What has He done? And what is He going to do? Those are some exciting things through that. So yeah.

Garry Schick
Exactly. So for our listeners, the Protestant Bible, I guess we could say it that way, which is exactly the same as the Jewish Bible by the way. We have the same books and our Old Testament as, okay, so the Jewish Bible doesn't have the New Testament, but Protestant and Jews have the exact same 39 books in the Old Testament of which were originally written in Hebrew and a little bit in Arabic. So that Old Testament ends 400 years before Christ. And so there's what we call the silent years, except that they weren't really completely silent. It's true, God wasn't conveying to the Jewish people revelation during that time, but there was still history happening. Now, if you look at the Roman Catholic Bible, they have a few more books and you mentioned one of them. There's 1st, 2nd, I think there's four books of Maccabees, and the Maccabee books in particular are history and they're accurate history of just what was happening in the Jewish nation in the time period leading up to Christ. Now, during that time, some horrific things happened. They were under terrible persecution from the Greeks. I think it was Antiochus Epiphanies who went into the temple, slaughtered a pig on the altar, which was just a horrific thing to do, outlawed the reading of the Torah punishable by death to read the law of God, to study it, to practice Judaism. I mean, basically he was forcibly going to turn the Jews into pagans and Greeks. And he didn't offer a pig on the Jewish alter to God. He offered it to, I think, Zeus. So, I mean, in every way it was a desecration. And then the Maccabees came in, and this is what this history tells. They had a revolt and they pushed the Greeks out. They basically were a bunch of freedom fighters who, they did, they pushed them out. And so in 2 Maccabees chapter 10, it tells the story of how when they rededicated the temple, they did, they had this 10 day celebration. And then it's not in Maccabees, it's actually in the Babylonian Talmud. So Maccabees, it's in Roman Catholic scripture. They have taken these books that we call the Apocrypha and considered them as part of scripture. But the Talmud, it's not part of anybody's scripture, but it's basically a tradition of Jewish teachings and stories. And that is where you actually get the story of, and when they dedicated the temple, there was just one day's worth of oil and it took a week to make the correct oil. And so they decided, "well, we're just going to burn one day's worth according to what the law tells us." And as it turns out, miraculously, it lasted eight days. That actually is a little bit, it seems to me, since it's not even part of their history, kind of a fable, like at Christmas. I don't want to get too far into this, but there are certain fables that everybody loves around Christmas time that a lot of people say, "I don't really know about that, but it's still a whole lot of fun." And yet then there's also the core thing. So the core thing in Hanukkah is that it is, and you mentioned, dedication. In fact, it is called the Feast of Dedication. And with that, did you know Hanukkah actually does appear in the Bible? Not in the Old Testament, but in John 20:22, it says, "then came the Feast of Dedication." My Bible footnote says, that is Hanukkah. Now in Jerusalem, it was winter, right about this time of year today actually. And Jesus was in the temple area walking in Solomon's colonnade. The Jews gathered around him saying, "how long will you keep us in suspense if you are the Christ or the Messiah? Tell us plainly." And Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you did not believe the miracles I do in my father's name speak for me. But you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice. I know them. They follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one can snatch them out of my hand." What a beautiful thing, a feast that the Jews, to this day, called Feast of Dedication or also the Feast of Lights. Jesus is the light of the world, and when we are secure in him. We have the light of Christ. You'll see, and of course the menorah with that, with, what is it, the seven? Is it like seven candlestick on it? It's from the temple. That's a symbol of that. But in a kind of an interesting thing, there's actually nine candles associated with Hanukkah, one for each day. And then a center one called, the Servant candle, that lights the rest. We often find this in Jewish traditions. I find it in some things regarding their Passover too. There are things that just seem to symbolize Christ, and who is that servant candle that gives light to all the rest? It's Jesus, friends. And so we wish you Jesus today. And if you know some Jewish people say, "Hey, did you know that your Hanukkah shows up in my New Testament?" Jesus celebrated it, and He is the light of the world.