ADVENT VERSES HANUKKAH
So, I used to always love celebrating the season of Advent. Advent just seemed so lovely. Part of the beauty was that Advent is so much about preparing our hearts to meet Jesus in the second coming. By looking back at Advent, we were patiently waiting on a better future. That future was a time when Yeshua would be King. The whole concept resonates with my core beliefs. However, perhaps there is even more value in the concepts when celebrating Hanukkah. Let’s take a look at Advent verses Hanukkah.
One day I realized something. Everything contained in the four celebrations of Advent were all of the same things incorporated into the celebration of believers who celebrated the eight days of Hanukkah. I needed to make a decision. Was I going to celebrate Advent or Hanukkah? There was no need for both. I began to think of how Advent verses Hanukkah would play into our family celebrations.
NO NEED FOR DUPLICATIONS
During the eight days, as we light the Hanukkiah, we remember the same things we pondered during Advent, only more. Do we really want to duplicate? There are a few contradictions in the duplications too. Which holiday is more accurate and truthful?
Why confuse the season by celebrating Advent when we can basically keep the eight beautiful days of Hanukkah and remember and celebrate the same concepts in a more accurate way? It seems that Hanukkah is actually a more biblical remembrance. This is confirmed by Yeshua in John Chapter 10 of our bibles. There is no mention of celebrating Advent in the bible. It isn’t an ancient Hebraic custom which Jesus followed.
You know me. I’m all about fidelity to the original. So, all of my previously appropriate Advent thoughts are now being explored during the eight days of Hanukkah.
THE FESTIVAL OF DEDICATION
The festival of lights, called Hanukkah, (definitely not to be confused with the Hindu festival of lights) is also known as The Feast of Dedication. It is called this because of how the Temple of God was being rededicated after being defiled by a ruler who did not follow God but practiced paganism.
This evil ruler is a type of Satan. The Feast of Dedication in modern times deals with rededicating the Temple of God, which believers of Messiah believe now resides inside our bodies. When we are saved God’s Holy Spirit comes to live within us. The heart is the altar. Hanukkah is all about the cleansing and purification of the heart. The first Hanukkah was all about physical purification of the altar of the Temple. Everything was being cleansed, purified, and rededicated to God. These physical concepts have spiritual connotations for believers living today. Our bodies are the living, breathing temples of God. Each person makes up a part of today’s spiritual temple.
This concept of “being the temple” is an awesome responsibility. We want to do it right. So, let’s compare the four times of Advent to Hanukkah’s eight days of remembrance and dedication. Let’s try to see the best things to remember and celebrate according to the scriptures.
THE PURPOSE OF OUR CELEBRATION AND MEDITATIONS
When I celebrated Advent, I was only using the truth I knew of the season. Anything that wasn’t truth was removed from our celebrations. At least that is what we tried to do. Humans often make mistakes. The whole book of Leviticus is about how we all commit unintentional sin continuously.
Back then, at our house, Advent was a time of meditating on the conception of Christ. I have long believed that the conception of Christ took place on December 25th, during the month of Kislev on the Hebraic calendar. Advent, therefore, wasn’t about the birth of Christ with us. It was about conception. We celebrated the birth of Christ in the Fall of the year. At least that much seemed to be corrected and in sync with truth.
There are four candles on the outside of the advent wreath, and one candle was always lit at our house on each passing Sabbath leading up to December 25th. (We were already observing the 7th Day Sabbath, so we did not conform to the world’s way of celebrating Advent on Sunday.) Looking back, I can see where syncretism reared its ugly head unnoticed, but our intentions were good.
I had a set of special devotional meditations we always remembered when lighting the candles. For instance on the second week of Advent, this was what we remembered:
FOUR THOUSAND YEARS WITHOUT MESSIAH
Each candle represents one thousand years. With the Advent candles, we were noticing a total of four thousand years from the creation of Adam until the time of the conception of Christ. How would we look at this during Hanukkah?
At Advent, the first candle, the waiting candle represents our waiting on Messiah to arrive in our lives. We could compare this time of waiting on the deliverance of Christ to arrive in the world (the time that it took Mary to deliver in labor) to the time that the Israelites were waiting in the bondage of slavery in Egypt. They were waiting and hoping that God would deliver them. It must have seemed like forever as they waited. I’m sure it seemed that way to Mary as she felt the Christ child growing inside her tummy.
These same thoughts are in our minds and hearts as we light the first four candles of Hannukah.
The second candle at Advent represents our prayers, penance and sacrifice on our journey toward knowing more of God. Again, these same thoughts can be incorporated into our thoughts as we light the Hanukkiah on the second night of Hanukkah.
PREPARING FOR MORE
These are things we all must be DOING in order to get prepared for God to be MORE in our lives. We say these thoughts out loud as we light the second candle of Advent. However, this more appropriately applies to the second candle at Hanukkah. Why? Because Hanukkah was The Feast of Dedication.
The Feast of Dedication was all about DOING the right things before God in the right ways. The purified Temple was being used in the appropriate ways that God had prescribed again. The re-dedication of the Temple was in the works at Hanukkah. This cleansing and dedication was what the people were and are always celebrating. It is the constant act of coming before God appropriately and truthfully. Nothing is about the truth WE want. All is about the truth God has ordained.
If you look at the times of God’s people living in the wilderness, you begin to see how God prepared the people’s hearts for how to become the great nation God wanted them to be. Through the Tabernacle, then the Temple, He was allowing His people to meet with Him. They needed to be holy. Holiness comes from doing God’s things God’s ways. He taught them (through Moses and the Levitical priesthood and the tabernacle) how to worship in holiness by praying, turning from wrong ways, repenting and offering proper sacrifices at the altar.
RESTORATION OF THE ALTAR
The MAIN event during Hanukkah is the restoration and purification of the altar of God’s Temple. If you want to take that further and make it apply spiritually in modern-times, it becomes a matter of the heart. Spirituality, the whole season of Hanukkah is about rededicating your heart (God’s altar for your body.) The heart of a believer resides within the spiritual temple of a believer’s body. I define a “believer” as one who has decided to follow Yeshua. This rededication and purification of the heart is the main point of Hanukkah.
When we lit the third candle at Advent, we pondered being inside a time of waiting, remembering, prayer, penance and sacrifice. Near the end of the season, we finally arrived at a place of joy.
We noted each year that we were not there yet. This was true because before we can get to a place of transformation, joy and peace, we must allow God to prepare our hearts. So, it also is in Hanukkah. As followers of Yeshua as Messiah, we are remembering the conception (not the birth) of Christ.
SEASONS OF MEDITATION
In this season of meditations, we naturally think of the times of John The Baptist. He came on a mission from God to prepare the way for Messiah. The Messianic meanings behind a believer’s concept of Hanukkah is so much more detailed than the meditations given at the time of Advent which the world commonly celebrates on Sundays. In contrast, we seem to have more of the right thoughts poured out more accurately in our studies of The Feast of Dedication at Hanukkah.
In Advent devotions we often mention our goal to do the work of believing, repenting, turning, changing and obeying. Do you catch those words “turning,” “changing,” and “believing”? This is the same message of our concept of rededication which is being carried out at Hanukkah. Hanukkah is more detailed. It lasts longer and is more on theme. We ponder the miracles of God for eight days as opposed to four. Compared to Advent, Hanukkah carries a double time of meditations on how to live before God and remember the things He has taught us.
These things are the things that allow God to bring transformation into our lives. We must begin to step into the True Light of Christ. Men on a different calendar than the one God created devised Advent. It did not come from the original celebrations of God’s people. Yeshua celebrated the truth of Hanukkah at The Festival of Dedication.
LEAVING A LIFE OF DARKNESS
For thousands of years there was no light. From the scriptures of the readings in Malachi until the time of the writing of Matthew there was a time of complete silence from God’s people. It was a dark period of the history of mankind. No prophets spoke.
People lived in darkness without God’s Holy Spirit. They did not yet have the sacrifice of Christ to save them from their sins.
With the lighting of the first candle of Advent, we began to meditate on the transformation that comes from hope. The first light is the hope of the transformation that Emmanuel will bring to us. I do love and appreciate this concept. However, this same thought is celebrated at Hanukkah. We see the great miracle of light that lasted for eight days as being symbolic of Yeshua. We know and enjoy the great cleansing and purification of our Temples which Yeshua provided by giving His life for us. Hanukkah emphasizes the fact that Yeshua is The Light of the World. With Him, the darkness ended.
TRANSFORMATION FROM REBELLION TO OBEDIENCE
With the lighting of the second candle of Advent we begin to meditate on the transformations that come from being obedient to God. We not only hope for these things we have been waiting on; we begin to dwell on them and to anticipate how we can arrive at our destination with them. These same thoughts are carried even further in our Hanukkah celebrations. It is all about dedicating ourselves to God and His service. Moreover, it is all about reflecting The Light of the World, Yeshua.
During the Advent celebrations, the progressive lighting of the candles first represents the anticipation and hope in the first coming and the anticipation and hope for the second coming return of Christ. He is coming back to us; and He will save us from a world of darkness and despair. Christ will bring the light. He is the light of the world. We are all still waiting together and anticipating the light that only He can bring.
THE JOURNEY MORE THAN THE DESTINATION
Sometimes though, life seems to be as much about the journey as the arriving. Often what matters in the end is what we do in-between the constant distractions.
The first four candles of Hanukkah bring us to the middle of the hanukkiah. In the middle stands the Shamash, (the servant candle.) This is the candle that represents Yeshua as The Light of the World. It is this candle that gives ALL the light to the other candles. The other flames merely share and continue its work.
You can easily see how God worked that out with The People of Israel in the wilderness. The people who started that journey from Egypt were not the same people as they approached Canaan. They had changed. God gave them the ways that would bring transformation into their lives. It is this transformation that makes a nation go from slavery to mighty and great. That nation which God used to show us this concept celebrated Hanukkah, not Advent. Hanukkah is more truth and more light. It lasts double the time of Advent. Each Hanukkah changes us if we are true to the celebration.
FOLLOWING THE MOST TRUTH
While you are in this time of the season celebrating conception, you do not always understand the significance of living through it. It is okay to use many of the good concepts learned through celebrating Advent. However, one day you will come to realize that Hanukkah tells all the same things, only more truthfully and more full. So, why not turn to the way that follows the most truth?
We can see that most all the journeys of the bible did not seem significant until they were over. The people of God were looking back at all the things God taught them as they traveled toward their destinations. Why not follow that path? It is the one that Yeshua followed when He celebrated The Feast of Dedication.
EXAMPLES OF THOSE WHO TRUSTED CHANGE
I think of Abraham and Sarah. These people left Abraham’s homeland and traveled to where ever God lead them. They were changed by the time they reached their final destination. They left their own ways behind. They followed what God originated for them. Their complete faith and cooperation with God made all things new.
I think of Noah stepping onto the ark. The man who stepped inside and dwelled with the stinky animals as the great boat tossed and weathered the storms was not the same man who stepped out into a clean new world. There he saw the rainbow that proclaimed the surety of God’s everlasting promises toward mankind. Noah kept only the things God ordained.
TRUTH FOR THE JOURNEY
We are all on a journey right now as we travel through life. We live and learn. Like the stages of an embryo growing in it’s mother’s womb, we grow and change as God nourishes our souls and adds newness to our lives.
Our destination is God’s Holy Kingdom of Heaven, but we are not there yet. We are still on our way. Not one of us has arrived yet. All the way God is teaching us, changing us, transforming us into the destiny that He desires for our lives. Christ coming to live among us made this possible. Why not celebrate this in the most truthful manner we know?
MORE REVELATION
Without Christ – Emmanuel – God with us – nothing is possible. Our waiting and our hoping becomes vain without Him. We must follow and imitate His footsteps. These are the seasons where we must live out the messages we hear with each lighting of the candles. Our house has transitioned from the Advent candles, which are not the whole story, to Hanukkah candles. The eight days of Hanukkah reveal so much more to us.
We must always be seeking for more light.
Each passing season we must always be seeking the face of God; just as Mary looked forward to seeing the face of her new-born child during her time of pregnancy. She was waiting and hoping and seeking to know more of this miraculous child she carried within her body.
We must be looking forward with hope and doing things in our daily lives that anticipate the second coming of Christ into our world. The miracle of the light at Hanukkah represents Messiah. It echoes that we must have hope and continue to believe in miracles from God.
THE DESTINATION IS CHRIST
Back to the thoughts of Advent, the large candle in the middle, the one that is elevated, represents the fullness of Christ to us. It sets in the middle of the advent wreath, and it is elevated. This is the same with the hanukkiah. Both traditions put Christ in the center. It is true that both traditions show He is to be elevated above all the others.
There is a major difference in the order of the lighting though. The hanukkiah teaches and shows how all the other lights originate from Christ. The Advent wreath candles light the candle in the middle last, and none of the other lights come from it. This is HUGE in the whole concept.
The Advent candles show the progression of the hearts of mankind and end with Christ coming. The hanukkiah begins with the Shamash candle that represents the Light of Messiah. He was the light of Creation. All of the other candles receive their light from the Shamash, the original candle. Without the Shamash, the other candles could not shine their lights out to the world. All that shines light out to the world originates from the Shamash, the servant candle which represents Christ. He is the first and the last. He is the beginning and the end. He is the Light of the World.
MORE OF THE TRUTH
I love the concept of the Hanukkah candles more. They represent more of the truth than the Advent candles. The Shamash is a perfect symbolization of Yeshua and what He does for us.
We must always be walking toward that fullness of Christ during the days of our lives. Followers of Yeshua must consider carefully how we walk as we grow in grace and truth. This is the goal of walking in the light of Christ. The closer we get the more light we see.
Each light adds more illumination into our paths.
We think of that old Psalm of David that says: “He leads me in the path of righteousness; He restores my soul.” Each new lighting of the Hannukah candles brings us further down the path of light which only Christ can shed our way.
ENJOYING A PLACE OF MORE LIGHT
Each time we ponder these wondrous events of the conception of Christ, our meditations and thoughts take us into a new place of more and more light. At Hanukkah, we see through the Feast of Dedication a pathway for restoring our souls. My eyes have been opened wider through celebrating Hanukkah than they were when I celebrated Advent. The whole desire is to grow as a disciple with eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart as close to Yeshua as possible.
You will still see the older blog articles I wrote about Advent before we changed to Hanukkah. I left them on purpose. They were left deliberately so that all could see the progression of the pathway which led me to believe in celebrating Hanukkah instead of Advent and Christmas. You will also see the different progressions of how I approached Christmas as years went by.
God shows us things gently. He adds one thing at a time until we get the whole picture. He doesn’t always let us know everything at once. So much information would be overwhelming for a mere human to contemplate. Slowly, like nine months of growing in the womb, we come to more fullness of life.
FOLLOWING THE COMPASS
When we keep Christ as the center of our universe; He becomes the compass of our lives. He teaches us in layers until we come to understand more and more.
Eventually there comes the time of the end of the pregnancy when the baby is born. This is what we celebrated in the Fall of the year at The Feast of Tabernacles. We celebrated the birth of Christ. Also, we celebrate our state of being born-again into God’s Kingdom.
At Hanukkah we are celebrating first the conception during one year; then as one year turns to another we see the life of the three-month old child named Jesus who will grow into a man who is The Son of God. He will live and die and resurrect again so that we can live forever.
GOD’S RHYTHM OF TIME
This all represents a cycle that shows a time-period of waiting. In all of these illustrations we can see the amazing progress of the conception, of the growing of the child as He dwells with us in the first transformation called pregnancy. Then we see when He first entered the world of mankind and came to the earth to be with us. The next transformation of being born, of taking breath into His lungs and growing into a healthy three-month old baby continues in the whole cycle of time.
Life with God is about constant growth and constant transformation. The Son of God went through this process just as we do. Though He was God He came to be like us so that He could save us.
Each year as we place the figures of Joseph, Mary and Jesus out in our sukkah; we also bring the candle that represents The Light of the World; Christ. We light this candle again in celebration of Him being born as The Light of the World.
So much transformation!
Many, many miracles from God over and over again.
MARY KNEW GOD
By the end of Hanukkah when we come to the last candle; we are to a place of really KNOWING that Christ has arrived to save mankind. He becomes that baby which keeps growing into the Savior of the World.
As we are lighting the candles during the Hanukkah season though, in terms of the calendar, by now the little child is already three months old!
This is where we are celebrating a little like the wise men who came to see the Christ Child at a time when he was a little older; yet still a child and we proclaim: He is here! We all need to be anticipating and looking for Him, like the wise men.
CELEBRATING THE MIRACLE
It is a great miracle, this conception, this birth, this child that will become a man/God, who will bring our souls through to eternal life. We celebrate that He is living and growing among us. Each year we celebrate in different stages and time that he is showing us more every day of how to live like Him. The waiting starts at the Conception; the moment He was given life as a human. That important moment represented God living among us.
Now He whispers to us that the waiting is over. He is with us, and He will always be with us. With the conception of Christ (and the birth of Christ,) the thing the whole world held their breath about has now transpired. The elevated light in the center of the hanukkiah shines out bigger and brighter than ever.
We welcome Christ into the center of our homes. During the whole eight days of Hanukkah, as followers of Yeshua, we focus our daily adoration upon Him as our Savior. We also realize He is the groom who is one day coming for us a second time.
His will is what we are seeking in our lives. We must begin to prepare ourselves for the time of the great wedding feast in Heaven when God will bless our holy union forever.
WE PREPARE NOW
We will eventually reach the last candle. Now is the time to prepare, because we know the end of the story. Hanukkah will transpire for the last time. Eventually, at His Second Coming, Christ will be King. We must make way for Him to return. It is time to prepare our hearts to receive Him joyfully into our lives forever. That is why I have changed from celebrating Advent to celebrating Hanukkah. For me, Hanukkah carries more truth. It is more scriptural. The impact on my life is fuller and more exact.
Every moment we are constantly watching, waiting and seeking Him. When will He arrive? Come Lord Jesus Come! Even this moment – we are waiting and watching the skies with hope. All of our hearts are saying “Come quickly Lord Jesus!”