12.25.24 ~ Happy Hanukkah

Good morning!

Happy Hanukkah!

Over the past week we've been talking about the conflict between the Greek culture and the culture of God's people and how the Hellenistic assimilation brought about the abomination within God's Temple (1 Cor. 15:46).

On this traditional day one of Hanukkah let me take you back to the seed of Hanukkah...all the way back to the post flood prophecy of Genesis 9:27; the Hanukkah that could have been. Huh?

"God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant"

I know this doesn't sound 'hanukkah'ish to our trained eyes, but let's stop a minute, and talk about beauty/yafa and its relationship to the interaction between Greek culture on the one hand and Jewish culture on the other.

Now it's an oblique verse and at first blush it's hard to understand.  What does it mean? Enquiring minds want to know. Look at who the children of these people are: Japheth/yafeth gives birth to a child by the name of Yavan, but Javan/Yavan later on becomes the nation-state of Greece. And who does Shem give birth to? Shem, of course, is the father of the Semites, those who are circumcised in their hearts and give praise to the Most High (Rom. 2:29). This blessing from Noah to his sons is a blending of the Jews and the Greeks in a positive way; where one dwells within the other.

Way back when, in Genesis, there seems to be this premonition that Greeks and Jews will meet, and the point of connection, somehow, will be beauty.

God will grant beauty to Japheth, and that beauty will dwell in the tents of Shem/Yaft Elokim l'Yefet v'yishkon b'ohalei-Shem. Interestingly, the flavor of the verse is not one of conflict, but one of alliance. Again, the way history played out, the holiday that we celebrate is a holiday that commemorates a war between Greece and the Jews, between Japheth and Shem, but seemingly it didn't have to be that way.

It's almost like that war is a corruption of the original prophecy. There is a place for that beauty in the tents of Shem; what is that place? Taking the best of the Greek emphasis on beauty and beautifying your obedience to the Most High possessor of heaven and earth (Gen. 14:19, 22).

On this 1st day of the 8 day celebration of Hanukkah, may your obedience to the Lord our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, be lavished with beauty in all that you do towards your spouse, your children, your extended family and to the world that we want to make a little brighter (Matt. 5:13-16).

Shalom!

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