Friday of
the 33rd Week in Ordinary Time
November 20, 2015 8:30AM
There was a time before the birth
of Christ when the Macedonian or Greek Empire controlled Israel.
The Greeks tried to impose their
own culture and even their religion on the Jewish people.
They actually converted the
temple in Jerusalem into a temple for their own religion.
Understandably, this was a great
insult to the Jewish people and eventually they staged a revolt and regained
control of their temple.
They rededicated it on December
14 of the year 164.
All of this is the context for
today’s first reading.
Now the Hebrew word for
rededication is Channukah.
The Talmud tells a story that a
1-day supply of oil miraculously burned for 8 days at the time of the
rededication of the temple.
So, to remember the rededication
of the temple, the Jewish people created the feast of Channukah and made it an 8-day celebration.
It is the feast of candles and
lights and this year begins on December 7.
It happens, of course, at the
same time that we Christians are beginning to celebrate Christmas and we do
that with candles and lights too.
We are celebrating the birth of
Christ, the light of the world, “God from
God and light from light,” as our Profession of Faith says.
So, from both the Jewish and our Christian
traditions, the lesson I suggest this morning is to lift up the light.
Lift up the light of kindness and
community, the light of social justice and charity, and the light of
reconciliation and peace wherever we see it.
That is the way to spread light
in our world, which sometimes seems so dark.
In fact, this may be the only
long-term effective way to diminish darkness and allow light to shine more and
more fully.
