My husband and I have long been celebrating the Hebraic roots of Christianity. We love the truths this path reveals to us. Such truths fill our hearts with wonder and worship. Hanukkah is especially beautiful from a Hebraic Roots perspective. This post reveals the details of our Christian/Hebraic Hanukkah celebrations in our home.
Having traveled this road for many years, I always think of the symbolism of the Samaritan woman whom Jesus chose to speak to as she was at work in the center of her city, drawing water from the well. It was there where she met The Living Water.
WORSHIP IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH
This particular passage of scripture stands out to me as my family goes through this time of transition from many old traditions to some newer to us, but actually more ancient in reality. We are moving into a Christian/Hebraic Hanukkah celebration instead of Christmas this year.
The scripture I’m thinking of is John 4:23 – 25: “But a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such as these to worship Him. God is Spirit, and His worshipers must worship Him in spirit and truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When He comes, He will explain everything to us.”
I’ve often written about this Samaritan woman and Jesus. (One story is available inside this book for sale at Amazon.com: https://amzn.to/3YHxdUF.) She is a fascinating discovery for all who are believers in Messiah from this mostly Gentile world.
There they were at the well, a Jew (Jesus), and a hated gentile Samaritan woman. These two unlikely people were having a friendly conversation that went against all of their culture’s traditions.
We find ourselves having those same friendly conversations in our own family today. Are we (as believers in Yeshua) worshiping God in spirit and truth? Jesus said a day was coming when this would happen. The woman believed rightly that Messiah would be the One to show us how to do this.
FROM OLD TO NEW THAT IS OLD
In light of such spirit and truth, we long ago became convinced that we should keep the annual feast days found in the Torah. We’ve come to believe though the Torah is considered “Old Testament” by many, God gave it to us as instructions for living a more abundant life.
None of these Torah instructions were meant to be hard, they were given for our good, to improve our standards of living here on planet earth. We accept all of the Torah as good and useful and not obsolete. The laws given in the Torah are a path of light to us, and Yeshua is that light.
It is our belief that the New Testament simply confirms and expounds on the Old. God never changes. He doesn’t say things that He will do away with in the next breath. His new things simply reveal the relevance of the old things.
TRUTH ABOUT DECEMBER 25TH
So, in keeping the annual feasts and festivals revealed by God to His people in Exodus and Leviticus, we have discovered facts showing the dates and times of the birth of Jesus have been changed over the years. They were changed by both governments and religious authorities.
In our home, we’ve decided to ignore these changes made by mere men and their councils. It is our desire to seek out and live by only what we know from God’s Holy Scriptures. The clues from the scriptures from long ago have proved to us that Jesus was not born on December 25th.
Yet, we see the joke that God played on Satan. We realize it is very possible that Jesus was conceived in the womb of Mary in the deepest, darkest night of December many, many years ago. Hope came to earth. Emmanuel was sent to live and grow inside the womb of a virgin. Something quite impossible became possible with God.
Our search for truth revealed that this conception came full-term. Christ was born during the next Fall season, most likely during the harvest celebration called Tabernacles, or Sukkot in Hebrew. So, we began celebrating His birth in the Fall of the year. That would mean we could only celebrate his conception in the late winter season, nine months before he was born. A December conception would lead to a September/October birth, nine months later.
We’ve shared the beautiful story of The Birth of Christ with our children and grandchildren at Tabernacles for years. It is never overlooked or forgotten. We celebrate that part of the story annually with happy hearts.
DECEMBER CONCEPTION
This is how we figure Christ’s conception was in December though. It must have been announced to Mary by Gabriel in the winter season. Winter was the time that all of the flocks were out of the fields and sheltered from the cold. No shepherds would have been abiding in the Jerusalem fields at night during the deepest time of winter, all were safely inside the sheepfolds. There they would be safe, warm and fed on grain until with spring when the pastures would renew with grass. Every good shepherd was aware of this fact.
There are a million more things I could speak of which led us to begin celebrating the birth of our Messiah with the true season. Once we did that, a lot of other things automatically fell in place. We studied the original meaning of Hanukkah and realized the great light of the Temple Menorah, that Lampstand in the middle, represented Messiah.
THE MENORAH AND THE MESSIAH
The message of Hanukkah the Jewish people have always commemorated clearly speaks of a Messiah who will come to be The Light of the World. The real story of Hanukkah reveals the victory of God’s people over evil. The war which the Maccabees won against the Greeks allowed Temple worship to be revived. The Temple was restored and rededicated to God. This allowed worship to continue as mentioned above, in spirit and truth.
Without this restoration, the worship of God’s people might have ceased. All of the truth once given to the Jews would have been lost forever. Those earthly people who made up the bloodline of Messiah, might not have known God. All that happened after that first Hanukkah which brought Jesus to us, would not have taken place. This restoration to truth was so important. Could it be that needs to happen again within the temples of today?
GOD’S TIMING AND GOD’S STORIES
However, God has orchestrated time so perfectly. He keeps time accurately. Everything happened just as it should have. The good, the bad, the evil and the holy mixed together over the centuries bringing all believers to where we are today. Today, more than ever, because we live in a world FULL of scientific knowledge, history and information, we should be worshiping in spirit and truth. Are we?
So, this year our little family decided to spend our holidays and holy days remembering only those that Jesus participated in as He walked the earth. We do this in the hopes of conforming to spirit and truth.
Knowing the things God has shown us over the last ten years made this so much easier. Celebrating Yeshua’s birth at The Feast of Tabernacles for many years now has made it so much easier for us to give up the trappings of men and the world. It has been easier to and leave the lies of Christmas which Satan has spun behind. Instead, we have celebrated Hanukkah in light of the fact that Messiah has come. We realize the greatest miracle of the light of Hanukkah is that Jesus is The Light of the World.
CELEBRATING THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
So, this year we bravely changed our family gathering in December to its proper name; Hanukkah. Hanukkah, though truly a celebration of the Jews, has also confirmed to us lowly gentile believers that a Messiah has come and He is The Light of the World.
We celebrate the Jewish history along with our Jewish brothers and sisters because it is the truth and dedication from them which has revealed the truth of Messiah to us. For us, as Christians, the time is so much more than a history lesson. It is a revelation of how God always brings ALL people together by first scattering then gathering them together again. It is our dream and our hope that we will all one day unite under the True Messiah who is coming again.
CELEBRATING THE EIGHTH DAY
In light of all of the above, we moved our usual family gathering time this year. We set the date so that we could be together on the last day of Hanukkah. Our grandsons actually came a few days earlier.
I loved every moment of this celebration. It was obvious to me that we were worshiping Our Great God in spirit and truth. He answered my prayers that our whole family of 14 people would be receptive to the celebration. That was exactly how it happened. I am so grateful to be on this long sought after journey with all of our loved ones walking beside us. Some are still learning, but they are all open and willing to listen, to hear and to do. I thank God for that every day that I live. It is yet another miracle of the season.
SETTING UP OUR HOME FOR CELEBRATION
I began implementing the plan for a “believer’s Hanukkah” by preparing and decorating our home. Being new to this particular celebration, I’m sure I might have gone overboard. We are not trying to imitate Christmas, so I wanted to be careful of that. However, being one who loves to decorate my home, I found several Hanukkah decorations which seemed to add beauty and meaning to the celebration. I loved sharing the things which we could see and touch and appreciate with our senses. That aspect of the celebration is actually a very Hebraic tradition.
Of course it was all about The Light. I had lots of candles, string lights and many Hanukkiah’s on display. The lights of our rooms were all symbolic of Yeshua. Nothing reveals His story better than the beautiful Menorah.
THE MANORAH AND THE HANUKKIAH
All year long at our home we light the seven branched Menorah to welcome in the Sabbath. On Hanukkah we use the nine branch Hanukkiah. Since this was our first Hanukkah celebration as a family, I decided to purchase a Hanukkiah for each family unit celebrating with us.
All four of our adult children enjoy their own families now. So, each of them had a gift of a Hanukkiah placed strategically around the room. When the moment came to light the lights of the Hanukkiah, we let each family light their own. All of these Hanukkiah’s shed beautiful light around the whole room.
On the eighth day we shared five times eight (40 candles including the one my husband and I had lit together all week) lit and glowing in the rooms of our home. It was a beautiful sight to behold. The lights were lit early in the evening and burned down as we enjoyed our time together.
FELLOWSHIP, WINE AND APPETIZERS
Before we lit the candles, we all shared a glass of wine and some appetizers. I had my first experience of cooking latkes. They turned out pretty good. Everyone seemed to like them. We followed the Jewish tradition of serving foods cooked in oil as a symbolic representation of the oil representing God’s Holy Spirit at work among us. We also served jelly doughnuts later for dessert.
So we drank wine and enjoyed some latkes dipped in applesauce, sour cream and a sweet sesame and honey Asian dip I added for those who didn’t want the other two. The photo above shows a taste test being held by two who are tasting latkes for the first time. Look at those faces!
I also served meatballs in a sweet sauce along with chips, dips, nuts, and a mixture of vegetables for dipping. We filled up on appetizers as we waited on our meal. This was deliberate because before we ate our meal, there were many other activities to complete.
A TEACHING ABOUT HANUKKAH
One of the first things we did was to share a video which explained Hanukkah’s meaning. It was full of history lessons about the original Hanukkah, but also gave a great talk about the scripture passage from John 10, which tells of Jesus walking in the Temple during Hanukkah and teaching on Solomon’s porch. The teaching was full and rich, yet it only took about 15 minutes.
I especially wanted everyone to realize that we could still say “Jesus is the reason for the Season.” We used to say that at Christmas, before we found out it was actually more true when we said it while celebrating Hanukkah. The teaching we used clearly explained this. Here is a link to the video we shared:https://youtu.be/YGS-xEvs_lc?si=S1hAyqFgxOlTbIHI.
One of my grandsons and I are history buffs. I think the two of us enjoyed the video the most. However, the others listened with interest. It was my hope that the historical and scriptural review would inspire further conversations. I think it will when we look back and remember.
PLAYING THE DREIDEL GAME
Before and after the review of the history of Hanukkah, the children were given dreidels and taught how to play. There were packages of gelt given to each of them when they arrived. They played the game as the adults socialized and sipped wine together.
I had non-alcoholic sparkling wine available for the little ones too. They were more interested in the chocolate gelt though. They played the game while the adults socialized. We shared the history of Hanukkah right after our appetizers. The children noticed the part of our teaching when they spoke of how the Jewish people hid their religious gatherings during the persecutions by pretending to play dreidel. Therefore, they were hiding the fact that they were actually studying the scriptures together. It occurred to our history buff that they were risking their lives in order to study scriptures and worship God.
SHARING A FEW GIFTS
After we reviewed the history of Hanukkah, my husband and I shared Hanukkah baskets I had made for each family. Presents are definitely not necessary. The presents are never the reason we gather, but we gave these as hostess gifts this year. Everyone seemed to love them. Also, we gave each of the grandchildren a gift bag full of small appropriate treats and surprises. They opened their presents before each family gathered around their Hanukkiah to light their family’s candles.
LIGHTING THE HANUKKIAH
I loved the lighting of the Hanukkiahs the most. It is the main event of a Hanukkah gathering. Different families develop different lighting traditions. The rooms filled with beautiful light for us to enjoy and share during our festive meal.
My husband led us in a prayer before our meal to thank God for all of the gifts of light He had given to us in this life. We were especially grateful for Messiah as The Light of the World. Our gratitude for family and unity among our friends and neighbors was mentioned. We thanked God for the abundant feast He had provided for our table.
THE CELEBRATION FEAST
We all adjourned to the dining area. I was especially happy to have the opportunity to use my Mom’s antique Blue Willow china for this occasion. She gave the china to me recently. I felt it made a perfectly beautiful presentation for this Hanukkah celebration.
Of course I served beef brisket. We enjoyed mashed potatoes and gravy. There were delicious dinner rolls. Other than that we enjoyed a squash and green bean casserole. There was a green salad and a gelatin salad too.
Desserts were everywhere. Doughnuts and pies were the main desserts, but we also had a dessert we let the children make for themselves. It involved icing a marshmallow, and sticking a Hershey’s kiss on one end for the pointy side of the dreidel shape they formed. There were blue sprinkles for coloring the marshmallow covered in white icing. Then a straight pretzel was stuck in the top of the marshmallow for spinning the dreidel. These turned out really cute. Plus they were very tasty! We love playing with food here.
PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL FOOD
By the end of the night we all were full, both spiritually and physically. Everyone left with a whole new appreciation for the history of Hanukkah, especially that year when Jesus taught from Solomon’s porch. As everyone went out into the night to their cars, we spoke of the fact that we were also celebrating the new moon. The sky was so black with only a sliver of light. As we looked up, we could see the stars shinning brightly. Tonight we knew more of the message they were sharing from the heavens.
HOW TO MAKE HANUKKAH LIVE IN THE HEART
As my grown children and their families went happily home, I wondered how much of this night would stay with them forever. Only God knows. It is God whom I am trusting. I know they must deal with in-laws, relatives, friends and neighbors. Just the night before our celebration in our home another part of their family celebrated Christmas with them all. On top of that, now they all participate in school systems who believe something different.
I will not pressure them to change, but only keep doing what we are doing. I simply give them all the chance to understand what God has shown to us. We try to live the other side of the coin so that they can see what we are teaching. The world will always show them something different. Especially those with young impressionable children.
They will be pressured enough from the world. It will offer shinny sparkling things which seem very important at the time. God comes to us gently and in layers. He does not pressure people at all. He simply helps them to see. It took us years to arrive at this stage of the game. We remember.
OFFERING TRUTH FOR THOSE WHO WILL ACCEPT IT
All we have to offer is truth. That is enough for us. To us the truth of God is the most beautiful miracle of all. Only He can reveal it to us. I pray it becomes enough for them too. God is the great teacher, not us. We must simply be careful to obey. He will teach them in his time. Like the lighting of the candles, it will come in stages. We were once in the same place where they stand today.
In the meantime – we pray that all are held safely in God’s hands. We are all in different places and at different times on this faith journey. God knows the right moments to reveal the right things and He will. I trust Him.
As I put that concern aside, within my heart I feel complete peace. I have followed the path of light God has shown to me. My husband and I have finally officially walked away from the stressful commercialism of the world and entered into a new and wonderous place. It is a quiet and peaceful place, but at times like tonight, it can be glorious.
My heart is full! I can feel God smiling.
To us, this was better than Christmas. It was worship in spirit and truth. I whispered a prayer of thanks to God and went inside the very warm house with all of its welcoming lights.