Advent in the Empire
Jesus and our Jewish ancestors had a great deal of experience living under imperial oppression. Often this required striking a difficult balance between living faithfully for God and also accommodating, as much as possible, the ways of the empire. Scripture is full of men and women who negotiated this balance: Joseph, Daniel, Esther, Ezra, Nehemiah, etc.
However, sometimes an empire arose that was so explicitly in opposition to God that no balance was possible. Pharaoh's Egypt was one such example. Pharaoh set himself up directly in conflict with the LORD, and the LORD brought plagues and disasters upon Egypt in response. Over 1300 years later, another king, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, an emperor of the Seleucid Empire (which included Israel), similarly placed himself in conflict with God and His people. Under such regimes, the only option left to God's people is to challenge the empire directly. This does not require use of military force (for example, no military force is used by God's people in the Exodus story); but it does require a disciplined rejection of the right of the empire to rule. The story of Hanukkah is one such conflict where God's people emerged victorious against overwhelming odds.
Dust of the Rabbi: Challenging the Empire:
Hanukkah, Jesus' Festival of Dedication
The story of Hanukkah is found outside of the Protestant Bible (in 1 and 2 Maccabees, located in the Catholic Bible between the Old and New Testament - you can read 1 Maccabees here.). Nonetheless, the conflict between the faithful Jews and Antiochus IV is historical and inspirational. Moreover, by the time of Jesus (almost 200 years later), Hanukkah, which means "Dedication" in Hebrew, was a significant Jewish festival that Jesus Himself attended (See John 10:22-42).
Many scholars believe that portions of the Book of Daniel refer to this very conflict. In Daniel 7:1-14, Daniel speaks about a series of four empires, depicted as wild beasts, and on the final beast there is a final horn with "eyes like human eyes in this horn, and a mouth speaking arrogantly." This horn is believed to represent Antiochus IV. Ultimately, in verses 11-14, the kingdom of this beast is destroyed and a new kingdom ushered in by "one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven." As in the Exodus story, God's response to this king is overwhelming. Indeed, in the historical account of Hanukkah, the faithful Jews, who were vastly outnumbered, defeated army after army until they finally liberated Jerusalem and rededicated the Temple that Antiochus had defiled.
The question for the follower of Christ, then, is twofold: First, under what conditions are we called to challenge the empire, instead of living faithfully and counter-culturally within it? And second, as Christians, what does challenging the empire look like? Jesus explicitly rejected the sword as the means to challenge empires (Matthew 26:51-54), so we must find alternative methods of transforming the political powers around us. Perhaps we find the best model of that Christ-like work in the non-violent resistance of modern heroes like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, who explicitly tried to follow the example of Jesus as they took on the empires of their day.
The Hanukkah Story
From the fall of Judah in 586 BC to the first celebration of Hanukkah, the Jews consistently lived under the rule of foreign empires. The Babylonian Empire, which led the Jews into the exile, was overthrown by the Persian Empire in 539 BC. The Jews were allowed to return to the land of Israel, but remained subjects of the Persian Empire. When Alexander the Great overthrew Persia and entered Jerusalem in 332 BC, little changed for the Jewish people. So too, when Alexander died and his kingdom was divided amongst his generals, and Seleucus began the Seleucid Empire, the people of God simply exchanged emperors yet again.
However, in 175 BC, a new emperor arose in the Seleucid Empire. This emperor took on the name Antiochus IV Epiphanes ("Epiphanes" meaning "Manifest" and being short for his self-proclaimed title, "Theos Epiphanes" or "God Manifest"). Antiochus IV not only called himself God Manifest, but he attempted to force the Jews to abandon their worship of the LORD and to adopt Greek customs and religions. The persecutions that he unleashed against the Jewish people were horrific. Unlike any other previous time in their history, the Jews were threatened not because of who they were or what land they occupied, but specifically because they refused to reject the faith of their forefathers. Ultimately the persecutions and desecrations of their faith led the religious Jews into armed revolt. Their leaders were Mattathias the Hasmonean and his son Judah the Maccabee (from whom the rebel armies took the name "the Maccabees").
After three years of guerrilla fighting, the Maccabees reclaimed the temple in Jerusalem in 165 BC. During the preparation for rededicating the temple ("Hanukkah" means dedication), they found only enough ritual oil to light the temple lamp for one day. But miraculously, the oil lasted for eight days - the exact time necessary to prepare more of the sacred oil.