Should Christians celebrate Hanukkah? Didn’t Jesus celebrate it?
Some point to John 10:22–23 as evidence that Jesus celebrated it: "At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon."
However, this passage only indicates that Jesus was present at the Temple during the feast—it does not state that He participated in or observed Hanukkah. Scripture explicitly notes when Jesus observed the feasts commanded by the law — because He came to fulfill the law, not destroy it(Matthew 5:17). Hanukkah, instituted later under Judas Maccabeus, was not one of those divinely ordained feasts.
Hanukkah (or the Feast of Dedication) is an eight-day commemoration of the Maccabean revolt and the rededication of the Second Temple in 164 BC after its desecration by Antiochus IV Epiphanes. It celebrates the purification and restoration of a physical building.
More fundamentally, Jesus presented Himself as the true Temple. In John 2:19–21, He declared, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," referring not to the Jerusalem Temple but to His own body (as John clarifies). The disciples later understood this in light of His resurrection. Jesus also prophesied the destruction of the physical Temple (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21), which was fulfilled in AD 70 when the Romans razed it.
This matters theologically: Jesus is the fulfillment and replacement of the Temple system. The physical Temple, central to Hanukkah's celebration, was judged and superseded by Christ, in whom "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Colossians 2:9) and through whom believers now have direct access to God (Hebrews 10:19–20). To celebrate the rededication of a building that Christ replaced and pronounced judgment upon undermines the centrality of Jesus as the new and living Temple.
Furthermore, Hanukkah today is observed within judaism, which rejects Jesus as the Messiah. As 1 John 2:23 states, "No one who denies the Son has the Father." Hanukkah commemorates a temple and a victory apart from Christ, while Christianity proclaims that in Him dwells the true presence of God and the ultimate victory over sin and darkness.
The two are theologically incompatible: one centers a superseded physical structure; the other centers Christ as the eternal Temple and Light of the world.
Christians should never observe jewish traditions.
Also, Paul explicitly wrote in his letters to the early Christian churches that Jesus did away with the Hebraic laws (like Hannukah). Paul said that trying to live according to such laws damns the person, because we all falter, but faith in Jesus is easy.
Should Christians celebrate Hanukkah? Didn’t Jesus celebrate it?
Some point to John 10:22–23 as evidence that Jesus celebrated it: "At that time the Feast of Dedication took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon."
However, this passage only indicates that Jesus was present at the Temple during the feast—it does not state that He participated in or observed Hanukkah. Scripture explicitly notes when Jesus observed the feasts commanded by the law — because He came to fulfill the law, not destroy it(Matthew 5:17). Hanukkah, instituted later under Judas Maccabeus, was not one of those divinely ordained feasts.
Hanukkah (or the Feast of Dedication) is an eight-day commemoration of the Maccabean revolt and the rededication of the Second Temple in 164 BC after its desecration by Antiochus IV Epiphanes. It celebrates the purification and restoration of a physical building.
More fundamentally, Jesus presented Himself as the true Temple. In John 2:19–21, He declared, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up," referring not to the Jerusalem Temple but to His own body (as John clarifies). The disciples later understood this in light of His resurrection. Jesus also prophesied the destruction of the physical Temple (Matthew 24; Mark 13; Luke 21), which was fulfilled in AD 70 when the Romans razed it.
This matters theologically: Jesus is the fulfillment and replacement of the Temple system. The physical Temple, central to Hanukkah's celebration, was judged and superseded by Christ, in whom "the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily" (Colossians 2:9) and through whom believers now have direct access to God (Hebrews 10:19–20). To celebrate the rededication of a building that Christ replaced and pronounced judgment upon undermines the centrality of Jesus as the new and living Temple.
Furthermore, Hanukkah today is observed within judaism, which rejects Jesus as the Messiah. As 1 John 2:23 states, "No one who denies the Son has the Father." Hanukkah commemorates a temple and a victory apart from Christ, while Christianity proclaims that in Him dwells the true presence of God and the ultimate victory over sin and darkness.
The two are theologically incompatible: one centers a superseded physical structure; the other centers Christ as the eternal Temple and Light of the world.
Christians should never observe jewish traditions.