Thanksgivukkah

Pastor’s Epistle—November, A.D. 2013 C

Thanksgivukkah!

Between the frightful fun of Halloween and the gentle joys of Christmas falls November. In many ways this is a time of transition, from death to new life, from autumn to winter, from pumpkin lattes to peppermint mochas. Unlike its forebear and successor, Thanksgiving, as a relatively young holiday (barely 150 years old) seems resistant to crass commercialization. I suppose it’s hard to sell goods and services whilst telling everyone to be thankful for what we already have! When I was a child I never found Thanksgiving all that appealing, but as I father I’ve come to appreciate it in its own right. The older we get, after all, the more we value food and family.

This Thanksgiving proves unique in that it falls upon the first night of Hanukkah, the Jewish (Old Testament) Festival of Lights. Because of this rare overlap—not scheduled to happen again for nearly 80,000 years—many communities throughout the United States are celebrating the mash-up holiday of “Thanksgivukkah,” complete with turkey-shaped menorahs and combinations of traditional Jewish and American foods. We may not have a particularly large Jewish community in our area, but Thanksgivukkah still presents us with an excellent opportunity to explore the connections between the Old and New Testaments of our Bible. Christianity, after all, is a branch of Jewish faith: Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, all Twelve Apostles, St. Paul, and virtually the entire first generation of the Christian community were all faithful and observant Jews. As we can read in the Epistles of the New Testament, the great question of the early Church was whether or not Gentile (non-Jewish) peoples could become Christian without first becoming fully Jewish. Today the question is often the opposite: how can Jewish people embrace faith in Christ while maintaining Jewish identity?

Even for those of us with no known Jewish ancestry, learning the faith of the Old Testament is of vital importance. We believe, after all, that we are wild branches grafted into God’s people Israel. In Baptism we are adopted into the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Every major Christian festival and holiday is in fact a reinterpretation and (from our perspective) fulfillment of an older Israelite celebration. Pentecost as we know it descends from the Old Testament Pentecost; Easter is the Christian version of the Jewish Passover; Jesus’ Transfiguration fulfills the Hebrew celebration of Sukkoth, the Festival of Booths; and perhaps most poignantly the date of Christmas almost certainly falls when it does due to its relationship with Hanukkah.

Thus our theme for this November will be Hanukkah, and we will focus more broadly on the Jewishness of our Christian faith. In this vein, our Book Group will be combined with November’s Christian Education Forum as we read and discuss 1 & 2 Maccabees. For those unfamiliar with the Maccabees, these are books found in Catholic, Orthodox, and some (but not many) Protestant Bibles. They are part of what’s known as the Apocrypha or Deuterocanonical books, which bridge the gap between the Old and New Testaments. 1 & 2 Maccabees recount how Israel won her freedom from Greek tyrants, became entangled with the rising power of Rome, and established the celebration of Hanukkah. They do not take long to read, and are readily available online. And trust me, it’s one heck of a story. Learning the Jewish roots of our faith (and of our Lord!) opens us to new and deeper understandings both of the Bible and of our worship. So please, if you find the opportunity, read the Maccabees with us this November. Then come join us for a little Thanksgivukkah remembrance of our own.