Advent 7 of 10: Hanukah & Christmas:

I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart.

(Romans 9:2)

What’s causing the Apostle such sorrow: “I anguish …for my own people, my kindred according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen” (Ro 9:1-5).

During Advent we spend time with the Apostle’s “kindred according to the flesh”. We too, are Abraham’s children, adopted by faith. Israel’s story is our story. And yet, and here is the sorrow, just when Advent meets Christmas, we depart and go our separate ways—they to the lights of Hanukah and we to the lights of Christmas.

This rift has a tragic history. For example, the Holocaust, carried out by a Christian nation. Yet, there were Christian leaders, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth, who formed the Confessing Church to protest the Nazification of the State Church. Albert Einstein noticed:

Only the church stood squarely across the path of Hitler’s campaign for suppressing truth, I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual and more freedom. I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly (The Church’s Confession Under Hitler, p. 40).

The Apostle’s anguish continues for three complex chapters ending with a doxology and an “Amen”:

O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

"For who has known the mind of the Lord?

Or who has been his counselor?"

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen (Ro 11:33-36).

The doxology and the “Amen” means the tragic rift will not be the last word. It is part of the Gospel Story. There is hope Hanukah and Christmas might someday be one. That’s why we must treat those who light the Menorah with faith, hope and love.