PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | Episode 80 – CHRISTMAS AND HANUKKAH
FROM OUR HOME TO YOURS w/ Nancy Campbell
Episode 80 - CHRISTMAS AND HANUKKAH
Rocky Barrett: Welcome to the podcast, From Our Home to Yours, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello everyone! Well tonight is Christmas Eve, so I am sure you are having the busiest day. Perhaps you won’t even get to listen to this today. Maybe you will listen to it after Christmas.
I thought today we would talk about Christmas celebrations and other celebrations. I know that some of you love to celebrate Christmas and some of you don’t celebrate Christmas. Some of you celebrate Hanukkah.
Let me tell you what we do. As you know, we are one of these celebrating families, so we love to celebrate everything! So we celebrate Christmas and Hanukkah. We do them both because they are both so very special.
So first of all, about Christmas. We don’t like to celebrate all the tinsel and the commercialism and the Santa Clause of Christmas. That’s not what Christmas is about at all.
Christmas is about Jesus.
Now of course we all know that Jesus wasn’t born at this time of the year. It just doesn’t even fit in with Scripture. It talks about when the angels came to herald the birth of Jesus that the shepherds were out in their field in the night. So it wasn’t wintertime.
Back then the shepherds would keep their sheep on the fields from about April to October. In the winter months they brought them in because it was too cold and sometimes even snows in Jerusalem. So we know it wasn’t at that time.
It also was the time when Augustus Caesar sent out the decree for everyone to come and register and they wouldn’t do that in winter when it wasn’t safe for everyone to travel and it wasn’t safe.
From Scripture and from the time frame of when the angel came to Zacharias and told him that his wife would have a baby and we work out the times, most scholars believe that Jesus would have been born around the end of September or early October during the time of the Feast of Tabernacles.
But of course He obviously would have been conceived at this Christmas time.
This is the time when we remember His immaculate and miraculous conception when God sent His Son into the world into a womb of a virgin and she conceived by the power and the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit.
It was an immaculate and miraculous event and something I believe we can celebrate. It is so awe-inspiring.
I think that this miraculous conception of Jesus, how He Who was God came to this earth as a seed in Mary’s womb (I mean, it is just too much for us to hardly even think about) at that moment He was God in eternity and then He was God in the womb of Mary.
He was not, like some people say today that a baby in the womb is just a clump of cells. He was the Son of God even at that moment—at the moment of conception.
This truth reveals again that a baby is a living person the moment they are conceived. It is an incredible thing.
We love to celebrate His conception and His birth, and we just love the carols.
I have sitting beside me today my wonderful husband. Colin and I have been married for over 56 years. I just thought I’d get him on our podcast today. I’m talking away here, but soon I’m going to ask him a few things of how he feels about Christmas.
But we love to sing the carols. You love to sing the carols, don’t you darling?
Colin Campbell: Yes, I do, I certainly do.
NC: It used to be that all the shops would have the Christmas carols playing, but they don’t so much now unfortunately.
But even though we know it wasn’t the time when He was born, we can still celebrate it. I mean we need to celebrate the birth of Jesus because it is such an amazing thing.
I love that Scripture, John 1:14: “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us . . ..” He came and dwelt. The word is actually the word “tabernacle.” He “tabernacled amongst us.”
The word means: “To tent, to encamp, to reside as God did in the tabernacle of old.” It’s a symbol of protection and communion. Just as God tabernacled in the Holy of Holies back there in the wilderness, now Jesus came. He came temporarily because He belonged to the eternal realm. He tabernacled for a while and He came in the tent of flesh.
I love some other translations. The Young’s Translation says: “And the Word became flesh, and did tabernacle among us . . ..” Isn’t that beautiful? That is the correct, original word in the original Greek.
“. . . And we beheld his glory, glory as of an only begotten of a father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14 Young’s Translation).
It’s interesting that He would have been born at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles which is when the Israelites remembered how they tabernacled in the wilderness and how even God tabernacled with them.
I love that Scripture back in 1 Chronicles 17 when David wanted to build a permanent temple for God.
God came to him and said to David in verses 4, 5: “ . . .For I have not dwelt in an house since the day that I brought up Israel unto this day; but have gone from tent to tent, and from one tabernacle to another.”
God was prepared to dwell in this temporary tent and it’s interesting that Jesus came at that time of the Feast of Tabernacles remembering that.
Many believe that the true, ultimate fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles will be maybe when Jesus will come at that time. But we don’t know the day or the hour, but some speculate that this will be the time when He will come and completely fulfill that feast.
Of course then we will be with Him forever.
He uses the same word tabernacle again in Revelation 21:3. The apostle John was on the island of Patmos. He was looking up into the heavens and he saw the new Jerusalem coming down.
Verse three says: “And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell [that’s the same word tabernacle again where it says Jesus came and dwelt with us] with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.”
Isn’t that wonderful? We’re remembering when Jesus, the Son of God, the Lord of glory, came to tabernacle with us.
He is Immanuel, Christ with us. He made Himself one of us.
Oh goodness, we surely need to celebrate that. We don’t need to celebrate all the tinsel and the commercialism, but we can celebrate His birth. Isn’t that so beautiful?
Anyway, I’ve got to ask my husband: what does Christmas mean to you, darling?
CC: Yes, well, it means a lot to me, actually. It was just a few years ago that I got a revelation about this time. I was just driving down the road and I got to thinking about it. It came across to me quite strongly and I believe it was from the Lord.
I began to understand the great lesson of humility that there is in this Christmas season. Of course we have the tinsel as my dear wife was talking about and the commercialism of Christmas and it puts people off and that’s fair enough.
But it was profound to me that from God’s perspective it’s a time of a tremendous lesson that He gave to mankind of how humble God is.
He displayed it through the provision of His Son, the Son of God who is the King of kings and Lord of lords. God, who is so high and is the highest of all, should humble Himself and come to this earth in the way that He came. It is an incredible lesson of humility.
I think that man needed that lesson. I believe the entire world needed to see that God indeed believes in humility. It speaks in the Scriptures about how He lifts up the humble and puts down the proud.
Just thinking about Joseph and Mary, how poor and humble they were. Mary said in her song, The Magnificat, when she prophesied in that, she said: “He hath scattered the proud” and “He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaid.”
She was obviously a very humble woman, perhaps the humblest of all women. That’s the reason that God chose her to be the mother of the Savior of the world because of her incredible humility, as she said: “He has regarded the low estate.”
Then she spoke about how He has put down and rejected the prideful. Even amongst all the women of the world, the one who would bring forth the Christ was the humblest of all women of the world at that particular time.
I think God had planned it that way.
Of course Joseph himself was a poor man. He didn’t have a tremendous amount of money. Though I do believe in builders. I think builders are incredible people. I wish I could build like some of the builders that I know. But in Israel it was never regarded as a great career to be a carpenter.
But when Jesus said: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He has anointed Me to preach” and so on, the people said: “Is this not this Joseph the carpenter’s son?” They were kind of prideful about it and thought that there is no way that this could be the Christ; there was no way that the carpenter’s son could be the Savior of the world.
He was born, of course, in a very humble place, a place called Bethlehem, as we know. The Scriptures prophesied about that and talks about that.
In Matthew 2:5,6 says: “And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda [in other words, princes as far as cities are concerned]: for out of thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.”
That comes directly out of Micah 5:2 in the Old Testament. It says: “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands [of villages and cities] of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”
He was everlasting. He was there with God before the world was created and it says “from everlasting” so He was the Son of God. It’s just profound to me the fact that God particularly chose such a humble place; even the city itself was the humblest of all the towns of Israel.
NC: I love it, too. I think how amazing it was what the King of kings decided for His Son. If we, just from our human standpoint, would think that He would choose some very important man in the city, but no. When God chose Joseph, He chose him because he was a just man. He wasn’t a rich man, but he was a just man.
That is such an important part of parenting. God didn’t look for riches and for them to have everything. No, He just looked for humble hearts and for those who were walking in righteousness. These things are far more important than going after all these material things.
You know, getting back to our families, we don’t have to have everything. I was just talking to someone recently and this person was brought up in beautiful rich homes and had everything she ever wanted. She’s married now and she said to me, ”That’s not what I want for us. I just want to have love. I just want to have a marriage.”
Actually, she was looking at Colin and me and said, “I would just like to have a marriage like you.” Starting off her married life, she knew what was the most important. It’s so true.
I think, too, of how some people say, “Oh well, you think God would choose a home where there was a room for every child and there would be bedrooms for each one.”
But no, Jesus was later a part of a big family. Yes, a poor family, not a rich family, but a rich family in children and family life because there would have been at least seven in Jesus’ family.
There may have even been more because there was time in Scripture (Matthew 13:55, 56) where it talks about His brothers and it mentions the names of four brothers—including Jesus, that’s five sons. There were five sons in the family and His sisters. That’s plural. Now that means there was a minimum of two sisters so that would be seven. But there could have been five sisters like there were five sons. There could have been ten in the family or more, we don’t know.
But it was a big family, and this is what God wanted. He wanted His Son to be brought up in a loving family—the riches of family life not the riches of things.
Even when Jesus was older, He said: “The birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man does not have anywhere to lay His head.” Isn’t that true?
CC: It is true. I think that if we don’t celebrate Christmas we could miss out on this incredible lesson of humility. I know that probably a lot of people don’t think about that.
But when you think about giving gifts, it’s appropriate that we do give gifts to one another, but not to get taken up with that to the point where we miss the incredibleness of the greatest gift of all when Jesus came down to this earth.
God gave Him as a gift for our salvation, which is a gift. I think we need to realize that.
Once I was traveling in South East Asia in an Islamic country. It was in Malaysia. There in the middle of Kuala Lumpur, which is the capital of Malaysia, on Christmas Eve, the Islamic population permitted a nativity scene in the middle of that Islamic city.
Everything around was just Islam, Islam, Islam, but there in the middle of the capital city, right in the square, right in the middle of the city, was a wonderful, beautiful nativity scene. I thought, “How wonderful.” I prayed that God would speak to the people about that.
But where was Jesus born? It’s a very interesting thing.
We all know that He was born in a manger, but if we didn’t have a Christmas time, we probably wouldn’t be going over these beautiful things of Scripture. We probably wouldn’t be thinking about the manager. We wouldn’t be thinking about the humility of Christ if we didn’t have Christmas.
It says there was no room for Him in the inn. I think God planned it that way. I think God knew that before the world was ever created when He planned our salvation.
There was no room in the inn. That’s tremendous humility that God permitted that His Son would be born in such a poverty-type place.
I don’t necessarily think that God is against a beautiful home or a palace. He’s not necessarily against that but He does want us to be humble people.
Scripture says in 2 Corinthians 8:9: “ . . .though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor . . ..”
We need to remember that Christianity is couched in the whole atmosphere of being poor in spirit, poor in heart, and poor in attitude.
NC: I noticed, too, how it was the angels that didn’t come to the elite people of the city or the Pharisees and the Sadducees. They came to the shepherds who were considered the humblest people. They came to just these Bedouin shepherds out there on the fields with their sheep. Jesus came to them. It was to the humble people who were of no esteem for whom He put on this incredible, angelic display that filled the sky.
CC: I think that if I was God, that if I was King of kings and Lord of lords, and I lived in Heaven where the streets are paved with gold and the foundations of the city are made of amazing stones and the gates are made of pearls, I would have thought of something different for my only beloved Son.
I wouldn’t have been so humble about His birth. I would have wanted to have the biggest fanfare that Heaven could provide for earth to confirm that this was my Son.
But that’s not the way God thought. He wanted it to be very, very humble.
He was born in a manger. Who would have thought that God, the Son of God, God in the person of man would come to be born in a manger?
It was outside the inn and was a place where cattle or horses or whatever who were traveling through would come and eat.
It was such a tremendous thing. He was born in a manger and in my margin(of my bible) that says: “the trough.” It was a place where they fed the animals in a little trough. Obviously, they took out and cleaned out whatever was in there and put straw or hay and then that’s where she laid the baby— the Son of God. It’s just mind-boggling.
NC: I notice, too, that when it came time for the dedication of Jesus, they couldn’t afford a lamb, which was the usual to bring a lamb. Instead they had to bring just a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons, which was for the poorer people.
CC: That’s what it says. In Leviticus 12:8 it says: “And if she be not able to bring a lamb, then she shall bring two turtles, or two young pigeons . . ..”
They brought the turtle doves or the pigeons. I’m not sure which one they brought because it doesn’t say in Scripture, but they obviously didn’t have the money to pay for a lamb. It’s really amazing.
The other thing is, did Jesus have His own house? It seems like He didn’t, although He would have been born to Mary and Joseph and I’m sure they lived in a house somewhere. But when it came to Himself, He didn’t have any earthly possessions of His own. He said: “ . . . The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.”
When somebody said: “I will follow You wherever You go” He reminded this scribe that He never had anything that He could call His own.
Who was invited to His birth? As my dear wife just said, it was not the elite of Israel. Where was the king at the time of His birth? Where were the high priests? Where were all of the people like that? They were not there. It was the humble shepherds God chose to be at the birth of His Son, humble shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night. That was not a career that people would do that seemed to be significant in Israel. It was probably the humblest of all careers.
Of course, wise men did come from the East, but they weren’t wise men from Israel. They were from the Eastern country.
NC: Getting back to the shepherds and the sheep, I just love this thought.
One time I was watching this little children’s movie about Christmas. It showed the shepherds with all their sheep going to the place to find Jesus. I thought that was amazing that when Jesus was born, He would have been surrounded, not only by the shepherds, but also by their sheep all around. Well, you know, it was a place for animals any way.
Shepherds would not leave their sheep on their own out in the fields for the wild animals to come. Shepherds looked after their sheep at night. Usually they would put them in a fold and a shepherd would lie at the gate of the fold to protect them. They never left their sheep unattended.
So isn’t that amazing? All the sheep would have followed them, and they would have been around Jesus at His birth. Of course He calls us His sheep, doesn’t He? We’re His lambs, we’re His sheep, we’re the sheep of His pasture and they were there at His birth, too.
CC: The angel came and spoke to the shepherds and said, “You go to Bethlehem and you will find the baby lying in a manger.”
While this angel was speaking, this is an interesting thing, it says: “Behold, there came a multitude of angels.” The whole sky would have been lighted up with angels singing “Glory to God.”
I think the significance of such honor being given to humility and how God thinks so much more of humility than man could ever imagine. I think that we have to understand that God looks at the humble, He lifts up the humble, and puts down the proud.
Here were these angels now, telling them to go to Bethlehem and find a baby, the Son of God, in a manger and then all of a sudden all these angels burst out, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, and goodwill toward men.”
NC: Amen, so I’ve got to have time to tell you what else we do at Christmas, too. We love to think about the birth of Christ, but we also celebrate Hanukkah. Now I know some of you already do this but some of you may have not heard of Hanukkah so let me just tell you a little bit about that.
Actually, Hanukkah has already started because it started on the evening of Sunday the 22nd. But you can still get in on it because we celebrate Hanukkah for eight days.
What is this Hanukkah business? It is a feast that is celebrated by the Jewish people, but it is a feast that Jesus also celebrated. We read in John 10 that Jesus went up to Jerusalem to enjoy and to take part in the Feast of Dedication.
Hanukkah has a few different names. It’s called “Hanukkah.” It’s also called “The Feast of Dedication.” That’s what Hanukkah really means. In the Hebrew the word chanukkah means: “to dedicate.” So Hanukkah means “dedication.”
Why is it called “The Feast of Dedication”? It is the story of the brave Maccabees. Have you ever heard of the Maccabees? It’s an amazing story! If you haven’t heard about them, I’m sure you can look up online and find out so much information. You can also go to the Apocrypha.
The Apocrypha, which is in quite a few Bibles, but it’s not part of the canon of Scripture. The books of the Apocrypha were not chosen to be part of the pure canon of Scripture, but they are very interesting to read, especially the books of the Maccabees.
They tell this amazing story of what happened at that time. Back in 167 B.C. Antiochus Epiphanes tried to completely extinguish the Jewish people. He was out to totally wipe them out. Anyway, this family of Maccabees, just a family, they rose up in revolt against Antiochus Epiphanes. They began to war against him and gathered more to them.
God was with them in a mighty way. Eventually they were able to overtake him and claim the temple because Antiochus had already taken over the temple. It was in disarray. They say he had even dedicated a swine in the temple; it was just so sacrilegious.
You can read amazing stories about these brave, incredible Maccabees in the Books of Maccabees.
When they eventually got back the temple, of course, it was overgrown. There was were even shrubs growing in it. It was just totally wiped out. All the glorious things in the Holy Place—the Table of Showbread, the Altar of Incense, the Menorah, they were all just broken down.
God had said that the seven-branched-candlestick, the menorah, was to never go out. But of course it had been out for a long time. So when they had got the temple back, they wanted to dedicate it and they wanted to light the menorah again.
History and tradition say that they couldn’t find enough light to keep the menorah going. They could only find enough light for one day. Then they had to make the new anointing oil according to the Scriptures because this was holy anointing oil. It couldn’t be any old oil. They couldn’t just throw in some olive oil. It had to be according to what God had prescribed.
While they were making that, history says that the light miraculously kept going for the eight days until they had enough to keep lighting it every morning and every evening.
So that was the miracle of Hanukkah. They rededicated the temple back to God.
That would have been an amazing dedication.
It’s also called “The Festival of Lights” because it was the relighting of the menorah.
The menorah in the Holy Place speaks of the anointing of the Holy Spirit, especially on the revelation of the Word of God because opposite the menorah was the Table of Showbread on which were the twelve loaves of bread.
This bread, “The Bread of His Presence,” or “The Bread of Faces,” as it was often called, pointed to Christ, to looking at Him and Who He is. It also spoke of Jesus as the Bread and the Word is the Bread, which is our life.
The menorah, the light shone down to bring revelation, so it’s also about the lighting.
Over this Hanukkah period we love to read the Scriptures about the light in the Word of God. I have listed out Scriptures for the eight days of Hanukkah. They are wonderful and I have them listed under headings for each day.
Day 1 is God is the Source of Light and the Scriptures about that.
Day 2 is Jesus is the Light of the World.
Day 3 is shine Jesus to the world.
Day 4 is the Word of God is our light.
Then it goes on for the eight days.
We read them for our morning and evening devotions during Hanukkah.
If you go to this link you can find these Scriptures and print them off to read with your family.
It’s just: https://tinyurl.com/hanukkahscriptures and if the link doesn’t work, you can just email me and I will send you the link. I also have a daily post for each of these days of Hanukkah. I know you will enjoy that.
What we also do during one of the days of Hanukkah, we usually choose which day is the best, and we will have a dedication meal because that’s what it’s all about.
Back in the time of the rededicating of the temple it was the literal temple that they were rededicating. But God no longer lives in the temple. I mean, they no longer have a temple in Israel. In A.D. 70 the temple was wiped out completely.
But now Christ comes to dwell in different temples. He comes to our temples. Our bodies are now the temples of the Holy Spirit. In fact, more than that! In 1 Corinthians chapter 6:19 is where it says that our bodies are actually the temples of the Holy Spirit. But that is actually not the right word. In the Greek the word is naos and it literally means “The Holy of Holies.”
It wasn’t just the tabernacle or just the temple. It was the Holy of Holies.
That Scripture is saying that you and I, we are now the Holy of Holies where God wants to come and live and dwell with His Shekinah Glory!
One of the translations of John 1:14 says: “The Word became a human being and lived with us, and we saw his Sh’khinah, the Sh’khinah of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth.” Now He wants to come and dwell in our Holy of Holies with His Shekinah Glory.
But somehow with life we kind of get jaded and maybe we’re a bit like that temple that gets a bit overgrown with weeds and junk and everything’s broken down. It’s good to have a time where we can rededicate out temples to God. We can rededicate again and give our lives back to Him.
So we like to do that, each one of us personally around the table and then the father can dedicate our whole family to the Lord to renew our dedication to Him.
That’s something lovely you may like to do over this Hanukkah period.
So I just thought I’d tell you about how we love to celebrate the birth of Jesus and how we love to celebrate Hanukkah.
You can find more about—just email me for the link if you can’t remember the name.
The Lord bless you today. Let’s pray, shall we?
NC: Darling, I think you should come and pray. Pray for all these wonderful mothers and families.
CC: Yes, let’s pray, shall we?
“We thank You, oh Lord God, for this tremendous display that You brought forth in the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.
“We thank You, Lord God, that when we honor You that we seek to learn and understand that message of humility and how You came in such a humble place, a little baby so innocent and so unable to defend itself, but subject, Lord, to the looking after by the mother and the father.
“We thank You Lord that You planned this whole Christianity to be based on this rock of humility. We give You praise, and we thank You, oh God.
“Bless all those that are celebrating Hanukkah as well and let us all be lights and rededicate our temples afresh to You just like they did back then. In Jesus name, amen.”
NC: Amen.