Jesus and Hanukkah

A Case in Point for Christian Celebration of the Feast of Dedication

Virtually all Christian theology maintains that Jesus abolished the celebration of “Jewish” festivals and instituted a new “Christian” liturgical calendar, but nothing could be further from the truth! Indeed, Jesus, himself unequivocally answered that question once and for all when he said, “Think not that I have come to destroy the Torah or the prophets. I have not come to destroy but to fulfill.” Then, he made the durability of his contention even more clear when he said, “Until heaven and earth pass away, not one yud or pen stroke of the Torah will ever pass away until all has been fulfilled” (Matthew 5:17–18).

Not only did Jesus never abolish the festivals of Scripture—the ones of which God himself said, “These are my festivals” (Leviticus 23:2)—he, in fact, practiced all of them, filling them with abundance through his life, death, burial, and resurrection. Jesus did not come to start a new religion to replace biblical and second-temple Judaism. Jesus was a Jew, and his religion was Judaism. And he never changed either his ethnicity or his religion. His avowed purpose on earth was to complete the faith of Scripture, which included the biblical calendar outlined in Leviticus 23.