20 December 2011

UNDER THE WATERFALL: Patrick ButlerInsights into the divine purposes of Jewish feasts are becoming a more significant factor in a growing circle of American Christian believers. It is unusual, and timely, that Hanukkah coincides with Christmas as it does this year.

Hanukkah, 2011 — or 5772 on the Jewish calendar — begins Dec. 20, lasting until Dec. 28.

For those Christians who have studied and cherished the divine meanings behind Passover, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hoshana — and now Hanukkah — the bulk of Christianity seems to lag behind in appreciation. But that is beginning to change, many Christians say, in an ever-widening resurgence of understanding of the eternal nature and purposes of God. What God “did then” (the Old Testament) is “a template for what God is doing now,” (the New Testament) I am often told.

When I was at the Tyler Morning Telegraph as Religion editor, I wrote an editorial about the nature of Hanukkah. I notice the paper republished it this year and it is reposted below.

It's a pretty good overview of Hanukkah. But what needs to be emphasized more is the significance of the re-purification of the Jewish temple after the Maccabees defeated the Syrians following a three-year dog fight after the pagans desecrated it.

Jews will tell you it was God himself who purified the temple, making a one-day cruse of sacred oil last eight days, fulfilling the requirements for holiness.

Sacred oil. Holiness. Purification. A miracle only God can do over a period of time. We need not spell out the spiritual implications of such a scenario. The most basic believer will recognize the archetypal images represented in those words.

Personal “holiness” can ultimately only be achieved as a miracle. Even more, the struggle to make God “available” to the ancient Jews speaks of a troubled times we are in today. The “God-window” in this country is shrinking, as people abandon faith for, well, God-knows-what. Whatever the substitute has been, it's not been working. The spiritual malaise the country is bogged down in seems to be getting more entangling than ever.

This Christmas, consider Hanukkah, purification, the historical Jewish struggle for true worship of God, and the lessons there-in. Now more than ever, it will take people deciding to “take a stand” for God in their own lives to make a difference where our society goes in 2012.

In 2010, I described what the ancient struggle for religious freedom — now celebrated at Hanukkah — did for America.

America is inseparable from the concept of religious freedom. Perhaps no other society in the history of the world — surely no superpower — can be found where government allows so much religious tolerance and so little interference.

The celebration of Hanukkah is popularly perceived by many as “the Jewish Christmas.” But modern observances of the celebration, which begins tonight at sundown, include the notion of the fight for religious freedom.

It's a fight Jews worldwide — and Americans in particular — should know.

The stage was set by Syrian conquerors of the Jewish state who ruled nearly 200 years before Christ. Antiochus (Epiphanes) commanded Jews to worship pagan gods, a religious abomination to the "People of the Book" and one God.

Rather than submit to oppressive power holders, a group of Jews, led by the family Maccabee, took up arms. Struggling against a vastly superior, well-equipped force, Jews resisted for more than three years, from circa 162 to 165 B.C.

The Maccabees — as the entire resistance became known — finally pushed the pagan worshippers from their temples. By various estimations, the struggle cost thousands of Jewish lives.

As Hanukkah's candles are lit in the coming days, this nation's Christian majority should rejoice with its Jewish fellow Americans. The Maccabees foiled government attempts to dictate divine concepts to the citizenry.

Nothing could be more significant. The capitulation of the Jewish religion and replacement of the God of the Bible with the worship of a pantheon of spirits might have adversely affected our own history.

While the Ten Commandments — preserved for us by the Jewish faithful for millennia — may be today unfashionable to post on the doors of some American courts, it is inconceivable for many Americans that those commandments could not be posted on the doors of their hearts. There are some places American government cannot, and should not, go.

There are approximately 5.5 million Jews living in America today. They were more than welcome here in 1790, said President George Washington.

Writing to a Jewish congregation in Rhode Island, the first president said, “May the Children of the Stock of Abraham who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants; while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

America was unique among nations in 1790, a lighthouse on a rocky cliff. It remains an example to governments yet attempting to control religion for their own purposes.

This nation owes a moment of reflection to those who have struggled against dictators for the cause of religious freedom, at the risk of life and loved ones.

Hanukkah presents all an opportunity for that reflection.

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