Last year we celebrated Hanukkah in Jerusalem. (You can see the lights of the city past the candles in the window.) Hanukkah is a beautiful time in Jerusalem. Hanukkiot (special Hanukkah menorahs) can be seen in windows and on rooftops all over the city. It is so fun and festive. Jews celebrating the miraculous preservation of their race. Jews and believing Gentiles thanking Hashem for his faithfulness and love. You can feel the excitement in the air.
This year we are celebrating Hanukkah in Brussels, Belgium. I don’t have to tell you how different it is. I can literally feel the anti-semitic spirit in Europe. Jewish life is not popular or even on anyone’s radar. Still this household and missions base is celebrating God’s faithfulness and provision to the Jewish people for the next eight days. As we add a new candle every night we will thank Abba and intercede for His chosen people.
Derek Leman at Messianic Jewish Musings in his recent post wrote such an eloquent description of Hanukkah:
The miracle of Hanukkah is the preservation of Israel’s people and the continuation of the covenant promises that God will heal and deliver Israel. The one who heals the people of Israel is Yeshua, the man who said at Hanukkah he was one with the Father, the one who said he is the good shepherd of Israel who leads his people to circumcised hearts and eternal life.
When a new Antiochus will arise, as foretold in Daniel, and will greatly trouble Israel again, it will be Yeshua who comes to deliver his people. In the meantime, we are the Hasidei Yeshua, the pious ones of Yeshua, who stand firm in faithfulness to God’s ways and who do not compromise. Great movements of salvation do not usually look impressive, but when the times get difficult, the ones who shine are revealed.
Tonight, the first night of this eight-day festival, we will celebrate the fact that the Jewish people have been preserved and that God’s promise has not expired or disappeared. Actually the Jews are the second hand on God’s prophetic timepiece for the Last Days. If you don’t understand the centrality of Israel and the Jewish people to the End Times, then you are missing a huge part of the Bible.
Yeshua, let the light of the knowledge of who You are shine on Your people during this season!
Shana tovah! For a sweet new year!
Tonight is the beginning of the Feast of Trumpets and the Biblical new year. It is the fifth of Seven Feasts recorded and defined in the Bible as “The Feasts of the Lord”. Our family is celebrating with extra sweet challah formed in a round loaf and dipping apple slices into honey as our pre-meal fun! I have found that the grandkids love the holidays. They don’t necessarily remember from year to year what it all means, but they definitely remember the food we eat. This morning Ashlyn (7 yrs old) started jumping up and down when I mentioned round challah along with apples and honey. “Oh, I remember! I remember! I LOVE apples and honey!”
We try to make every holiday something that the kids will enjoy and remember. If the kids remember, then it makes it more fun for the parental units as well. The Feasts of the Lord are meant to be enjoyed, and they are precious family times!
The blowing of the shofar comes from Leviticus 23:24.
“Tell the people of Israel, ‘In the seventh month, the first of the month is to be for you a day of complete rest for remembering, a holy convocation announced with blasts on the shofar.’”
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Blowing the shofar during Elul in the house of prayer last year.
The fall feasts of the Bible is my favorite season of the year. I especially loved celebrating these feasts in Israel last year. What a privilege! Today is the twentieth day in the Biblical month of Elul, the last month of the Jewish calendar. Elul will end at sundown on September 8th. The next day (Sept. 9) is Rosh Hashana, the first day of the Jewish new year. Rosh Hashana begins the fall feasts of God.
Every day during this month of Elul the shofar is blown and Psalm 27 is read in minyans and prayer groups. Elul is a month of preparation for the Days of Awe between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur culminating on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year. It’s a time of reflection. Elul means “returned with” signifying when the Jewish people returned to Israel after their 70 years in Babylon. Since that time Elul is a month where we “return to HaShem” in repentance. This is a holy month leading up to the most holy month, Tishri. (Next week I will write about Tishri and Rosh Hashana.)
Repentance. It is a word that is not too popular in some circles, especially those who think grace is a free ride to live on the edge of holiness thinking that God will excuse their little indulgences in the world. The Bible doesn’t teach that at all.
“Therefore, my dear friends, since we have these promises, beloved, let us purify ourselves from everything that can defile either body or spirit, and strive to be completely holy, out of reverence for God.” (II Cor. 7:1)
“So that you may be blameless and pure children of God without defect in the midst of a twisted and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the sky.” (Phil 2:15)
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Reflection of Mt. Zion in the prayer room window
When my husband, son, and I moved to Brussels, Belgium four months ago from Jerusalem, it felt like I was leaving part of my soul there. Almost every day I think about Israel, specifically Jerusalem, and the amazing year we lived there. So many precious memories were made there. I am not saying I don’t love Belgium or don’t believe this is where my family is supposed to be. I do. We are definitely in the center of the will of God. I love what He is doing here in Belgium. This is His plan for us, and I wouldn’t have it any other way, but I really miss Israel! Not just what Israel stands for in my life, but the actual physical land and people.
Jerusalem is the only city mentioned in the Bible that God loves. Most of Biblical history happened there. Abraham, Joshua, Isaiah and Jeremiah walked on the dusty hillsides. Yeshua walked the Land for thirty-three years and especially loved the Galilee area. He died, was buried, and rose again in Jerusalem. The Apostle Paul was a Pharisee in Jerusalem and had a life-altering encounter with Yeshua on the road leading to Damascus, Syria.
Yeshua is Jewish. The disciples were Jewish. The church that Yeshua built was obviously Jewish for three hundred years until Constantine was “converted” and started removing all traces of Jewishness from it. Christianity should more accurately be called “Messianic Judaism”. Yeshua never meant for the church to be pulled away from her Jewish root. We, as Gentile believers in Yeshua, have been grafted in to the Jewish vine. God reconciled me to Himself by sacrificing His Son, a human baby who was born to Jewish parents in a small Jewish town. That’s how much He wanted a relationship with me. Wow. This is just too much for my little mind to comprehend. (more…)
