Day 138

1 Samuel 1:1-2:26, John 10:22-42, Psalms 63:1-11

You may remember back to when we looked at the Magnificat, Mary’s song, and the fact that there were similarities with this prayer. As the mother of the prophet Samuel, Hannah was quite a big figure in Jewish life. Her name means ‘grace’ and in her song she speaks of the way that God acts with grace to the oppressed but not to the oppressor. On her many pilgrimages up to the ark at Shiloh, Hannah had really got to grips with a God of justice, and it was to that God that she prayed after getting grief from her husband’s other wife one too many times.

In the Gospel I noticed how much John bases Jesus life on the Jewish year, today showing us the feast of dedication. This is actually what Jews celebrate today as Hanukkah. This feast goes back to the time between the Old and New Testaments when the temple in Jerusalem had been taken over and used for pagan worship. There was a bit of an uprising that became known as the Maccabean Revolt involving a priest, his family and a band of followers. Once they had won, the end result was a three year cleansing of the temple with the rebuilding of the sanctuary, rededication of all the sacred spaces and a brand new altar to replace the one that had been tainted by pagan sacrifices. 

This was a big day for the Jews and so the feast of dedication (or Hanukkah) was an important festival at the temple, and we are told that Jesus was walking through the temple when this encounter happened. This festival is all about cleansing after pagan pollution and then within the vicinity of the altar Jesus says “me and God are one”, He certainly picks his moments to utter what the Jews think is full on blasphemy. We know, however, that he is the Son of God, that he and the father are one. There is that all important passage where Jesus links his body and the temple when he says that the temple will be destroyed and rebuilt in three days. Here the Jews are affirming the nature of the temple and Jesus affirms the nature of himself, of God, with God and being God.

Why not echo the words of the Psalm today.

“You, God, are my God,
   earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
   my whole being longs for you,”

Just as Samuel was given to God and the temple was made His once more, as we yearn to seek God, let’s dedicate our lives to him here and now, that we may be one with him.