Last time we indicated that Jesus used two aspects of
the Hanukkah festival to point to two remarkable truths about Himself.
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| Hanukkah Lamp |
The
first is
His use of the word ‘ἡγίασεν’ (hegiasen) which is translated ‘sanctified’
but
could easily be translated ‘dedicated’ which is a play on the name of the feast
‘hanukkah’ (dedication). This text (“Him whom the Father sanctified (dedicated)
and
sent into the world”) tells us that Jesus was dedicated before His birth. We are
also aware that as an infant He was dedicated to the Lord (Luke 2:23). This
early act of dedication in His life was never rescinded and in the proper
course of time was further confirmed by the Messiah as His prayer in John 17
reveals. “And for their sakes I sanctify (dedicate)
Myself,
that they also may be sanctified by the truth” (John 17:19). So He was
dedicated (Hanukkah’d):
Before His birth.
At His birth, and
After His birth.
John’s biography of
Jesus (chapter two) also contains the record of a much earlier encounter with
Jewish leaders, a group that might have included some of these same people. It
seems that a temporary market had been set up within the Temple area (in the
court of the Gentiles). There were traders selling animals for ritual sacrifice
alongside money-changers who handled Temple currency. All this taking place
within the area marked out by Solomon as sacred for the worship of the Lord. This, it would appear, was only
a small desecration — nothing approaching the scale of Antiochus’ profanity. Nevertheless,
Jesus took it very seriously. He (the Lord of the Temple) drove out the
offending mercenaries. For the disciples it later brought to mind a text from
the Psalms: “... zeal for Your house has eaten me up” (see
John 2:17). This text continues; “And the reproaches of those who
reproach You have fallen on me” (Psalm 69:9). His connection to
the Temple and His Father was very strong and abuses of the Sanctuary were felt
personally by Jesus.
In this early clash
with the Temple authorities, He was challenged to provide some evidence of
Messianic authority that could justify His actions. They asked for a sign, an
authenticating miracle: “What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?”
(John 2:18) He replied: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it
up”
(John 2:19). They thought He was talking about the ‘grand buildings’ that
surrounded them, but He spoke of the temple of His body. In fact it was an
early indication that the key sign for those that opposed Him would be the sign
of the prophet Jonah, that is, the sign of death and resurrection. It is Matthew’s gospel that emphasises its importance. In a separate
brush with the Jewish leadership Jesus said: “An evil and adulterous generation
seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the
prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the
great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart
of the earth” (Matt. 12:39–40).
In expressing Himself in this
way, He was clearly aware they would execute Him. In fact it would be ‘outside
the camp’ on the site where the Day of Atonement sin offerings were
burned (see Heb. 13:11,12)—a greater profanity than that committed by
Antiochus. But He was equally as clear that He would rise from the dead and
that would be the greatest attesting sign of who He really was. Paul confirmed
it: he said Jesus was “… declared
to be the Son of God ... by the resurrection from the dead” (Rom. 1:4).
But more significantly
for the nation, Jesus knew that in a few short years Israel’s governing body,
the Sanhedrin, which included the
leading priests, would declare that neither YHWH nor His Son had authority over
them—in fact they had no king but Caesar. What a confession to utter in the
shadow of the House of God! Such a denial of the authority of the God of Israel
would inevitably lead to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple.
In the light of this previous clash (in John
2) it is no stretch to think that, at
the festival of Hanukkah (in John 10) the Messiah was again alluding to the
fact that He was the true fulfilment of
the meaning of the feast. As Judas Maccabaeus restored access to God by
dedicating the Temple, even so Jesus will provide even greater access to God
through the dedication of His temple, His body. In the Jerusalem Temple access
to the Holy Place and beyond to the Holiest of All was through the Gate of the
Golden Vine. Jesus replaced that—He asserted: “I am the way, the truth, and the
life. No
one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). The writer to
Hebrew Christians includes this truth in his letter: “Therefore,
brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which
He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh”
(Heb. 10:19–20).
The second point next time ...
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