Today I "Recycle, Reduce & Reuse" a blessing that I sent last year because it is important for all of us to feel connected to one another as children of one God... we are ONE people... we are blessed and need to spread the LOVE for one another always....
Shalom from my heart to yours....
Tonight, my Jewish friends will begin to celebrate Hanukkah... since I grew up with several Jewish friends and celebrate the Jewish Holidays with them.. and they celebrate the Catholic Holidays with me... it is only befitting that I write a blessing about the connection that we share.....
Hanukkah is the Feast of Dedication that celebrates the victory of the Jewish freedom fighters over the evil Antiochus Epiphanes of the Syrian-Greek Empire. Antiochus (215-164 BC), who was nicknamed "The Madman," felt threatened by the Jewish people and decided to turn the Jews into good Greeks. He demanded that the Jewish people bow down to his statue, worship him as a Greek god incarnate and submit to his authority. The Jews hated idols and would never bow down to one-and they could never believe that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was incarnated in the person of Antiochus Epiphanes! The Jews rebelled... Mattathias and his son Judah Maccabee led a grassroots rebellion from about 167 to 165 BC. The Maccabees fought hard and finally took Jerusalem and the Temple back in great victory.
After the victory, the Maccabees only had enough olive oil to fuel the eternal light in the Temple for one day-but it took eight days to crush the olives and prepare the oil. The miracle of Hanukkah is this: the oil, which should have only lasted one day, lasted for eight...
While I definitely believe that this was a miracle, I think that the real miracle of Hanukkah is that God once again preserved His chosen people against all odds... The Lord kept His promise to Israel that they would not be destroyed (Jeremiah 31:35-37).
God preserved His people because He had chosen them for a glorious purpose that was yet to be fulfilled!
.. and because of this promise, Christianity came to be.... Almost 200 years later, God sent His final and ultimate Word of redemption and sacrifice ... Jesus the Messiah... to purchase the salvation of Jews and Gentiles with His own life. If God had not enabled the Maccabees to overthrow Antiochus, the Jewish people may very well have been destroyed. If the Jewish people had been destroyed, then the birth of the Savior could never have taken place!
The true link between Hanukkah and Christmas is very simple:
God is faithful and always keeps His promises.
Therefore... I believe that without Hanukkah, there would be no Christmas.
So... my Christian friends... please say Happy Hanukkah to the Jewish people in your lives... and my Jewish friends... please say Merry Christmas to the Christians in your lives.... While it seems nice to simply say "Happy Holidays"... it's nicer still to acknowledge the connection we all share as children of one God... because we are loved beyond measure and a cherished blessing to the world...
May you all be blessed with everything good...
With love,
Elena
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