As we approach the commencement of Chanukah tonight, I am reflecting on the Chanukah story. For those of you not familiar with the story, here it is "in a nutshell:"
- Even with the memory of the banishment to Babylon still fresh in their minds, the Israelites fell quickly into sin upon return to the land.
- Her temple sacrifices became nothing more than dead ritual, and she would be overrun by a new enemy--the Seleucid Empire (one of the four Greek kingdoms that carved up Alexander's vast empire after his death).
- In 175 BCE, Antiochus IV murdered his nephew and usurped the Selucid throne. Immediately upon taking rulership, he murdered the Jewish High Priest and sold the office to a puppet priest.
- In 168 BCE, after being humiliated in a military campaign in Egypt by the up-and-coming Roman Empire, Antiochus returned to Jerusalem and took out his rage upon the Jews residing there. He killed 40,000 of them, forced his way not only into the Temple but into the very Holy of Holies, destroying the scrolls and sacrificing a pig on the altar. He ordered the priests to eat the pig; those who didn't were tortured to death.
- In the nearby town of Modi'in, an old priest named Mattathias responded to the order to sacrifice a pig by murdering the Greek commanding officer and forming, with his sons, a guerilla army.
- Against overwhelming odds, that guerilla army fought the Greeks, overcame them, and freed the Jewish people from their rule. In 164 BCE, they captured the Temple and cleansed it of all the idols that had been set up there.
For the next 80 years, the family that organized this guerilla army--known as the "Maccabees"--ruled Israel. Unfortunately, the Maccabean dynasty soon fell into the same corruption and murderous zeal for power that had characterized the oppressors whom they'd dethroned. Civil war ensued, and in 63 BCE the Romans conquered the land.
It is against this historical backdrop that Yeshua's disciples asked the question in Acts 1:7: "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"
Today, Israel is at a similar crossroads. Her political leaders are only too willing to sell her land birthright for political power. Her spiritual leaders are only too willing to keep her people from knowing their true Messiah. So...as Chanukah draws near, it is once again time to ask the question:
"Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?"
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