Jesus: The Fulfillment Of Hanukkah

We now find ourselves almost 200 years later in the Temple with Jesus, celebrating Hanukkah, remembering the great victory. We remember with joy how the imposter who claimed to be God--Antiochus Epiphanes--was put in his place. God had brought His people to victory even during a time when He provided no prophets to speak to His people. We remember also when the Most Holy Place was restored, consecrated, and set apart so that God would continue to bring His forgiveness to His people through His mandated sacrifices.

Yes, the Festival of Dedication was a jubilant celebration: it remembered the defeat of wrong, the defeat of one who claimed to be God. It also remembered the victory of right, the victory where God pointed His people again to His sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins. That was the original Hanukkah; that was what Hanukkah was meant to celebrate and remember.

It was within all that Hanukkah brought to mind that Jesus’ fellow Israelites asked Him if He was the Messiah. Jesus said, “I did tell you, but you won’t believe.” Jesus then continued his conversation until its climax where He said: “The Father and I are one.”

Jesus just said that He is God right in the middle of Hanukkah. Those who believed, understood what it meant for Jesus to be the Messiah. Those who did not, boiled over in anger: here’s this man claiming to be God just like Antiochus Epiphanes. He should now be in the grave just like Antiochus Epiphanes. And so they picked up rocks to stone Jesus.

They knew exactly that Jesus called Himself God. In anger they responded, “We aren’t stoning you for good work, but for blasphemy, because You--being a man--make Yourself God.”

So there Jesus is, saying He is God. How was it supposed to be understood? In this way: Yes, Antiochus Epiphanes was nothing but a fraud who claimed to be God, but here before you is God in the flesh--Jesus the Messiah. That was what they were meant to learn and take in. Jesus was the real deal.

Sadly, most responded in unbelief and not from faith. Most believed that Jesus was a phony just like Antiochus Epiphanes. They missed the teaching moment of Hannakuh that Jesus used to point to His divinity.

But Jesus still had more to teach. He takes the accusations against Him of blasphemy, during Hanukkah, and asks the crowd, “Do you say [to Me], ‘You are blaspheming’ to the One the Father set apart and consecrated?”

Right in the middle of a festival where the people remembered the Most Holy Place being reconsecrated, Jesus says He is consecrated and set apart by the Father just like the Most Holy Place and just like the Temple. Jesus used the same language as for setting apart an altar and consecrating it as holy.

Yes, even the Temple pointed to Jesus. He said as much earlier in St. John’s Gospel. Referring to Himself, Jesus said, “Destroy this Temple and I will raise it up in three days” (John 2:19). And so in the middle of Hanukkah, Jesus uses the festival as a backdrop to show that He outstrips and fulfills the Feast of Dedication, of Hanukkah. Even Hanukkah points forward to Jesus.