This Hanukkah season is when you taste no longer of hope deferred, but desire fulfilled.

We are on the brink of Hanukkah 5778, which, depending on whether you go by the rabbinic calendar or watch for the sighting of the new moon from Jerusalem to mark the new month, begins on the evening of December 12 or 13 respectively.

Esther was presented to the king on the seventh day of Hanukkah, in the seventh year of his reign. Seven is the number of completion. The days of purification were over for Esther and the days of reigning at the side of the king lay ahead. (Esther 2) When Esther first went through the giant gates of the palace, she apparently ceased to have an impact on the rest of the nation but, a year later, after her preparation was complete, she was assigned a pivotal seat of power and all her actions from that time forth greatly affected the 127 provinces over which king Xerxes ruled.

So what does this Hanukkah season mean for us? For those who are part of the Bride-in-waiting, those with a heart to please the King of Kings, the time of preparation is at an end. The long months of repentance and purifying, the trials that brought the dross to the surface, the obscurity of being the unknown amidst many undergoing similar preparations is finally at a close.

Hanukkah is a time of great change. IT IS A TIME OF MOVING DWELLING PLACES; OF COMING OUT FROM AMONG THE THRONGS OF HOPEFULS TO FINALLY EXPERIENCING WHAT OTHERS HAVE DREAMED OF. It is a time of letting go of all that is connected to the long process of preparation and stepping forward with empty hands to embrace fully what has been prepared for you! It is a time when you taste no longer of hope deferred but desire fulfilled. Never again will you sit under the ministrations of a eunuch, incapable of imparting fruitfulness to you. From now on, you are moving location to the place of great fruitfulness and influence.

Hanukkah is called the Festival of Lights, and each day, another lamp is lit, until finally on the eighth day, the whole candlestick plus the centre flame used to light the others, blazes with light. HANUKKAH IS A FESTIVAL OF INCREASING LIGHT AND REVELATION. Beloved, there is light at the end of the tunnel, the Festival of Lights is here and it is time to step out of the house of preparation and into the dwelling quarters of the King of Kings. IT IS A TIME OF MOVING FROM MEASURED PROVISION FOR SPECIFIC PREPARATION TO LAVISH PROVISION FOR POSITIONING.

And the king made a great banquet for all his rulers and his servants, Esther’s banquet. And he ordered a holiday for the provinces, and gave gifts, according to the state of the king. (Esther 2:18)

Your positioning and the taking of your appointed bridal position triggers the beginning of a feast and the release of gifts to many people. You are not the only one that is blessed by this move to a new chapter of ruling and reigning. The word translated ‘holiday’ in the Hebrew actually means ‘release, rest’. It is the word ‘hanachah’, which sounds very similar to Hanukkah! AT THE CLOSE OF HANUKKAH, HANACHAH IS RELEASED. You go from a time of intense working on the minutest flaws and failings to complete release and rest. Paul tells us that there is still coming a rest for the people of God.

8 For if Joshua had given them rest, He [God] would not speak afterward about another day.
9 So then, there is still awaiting a full and complete Sabbath-rest reserved for the [true] people of God;
10 For he who has once entered [God’s] rest also has ceased from [the weariness and pain] of human labors, just as God rested from those labors peculiarly His own.
11 Let us therefore be zealous and exert ourselves and strive diligently to enter that rest [of God, to know and experience it for ourselves], that no one may fall or perish by the same kind of unbelief and disobedience [into which those in the wilderness fell]. (Hebrews 4:8-11)

It is the naming and crowning of a worthy queen that releases a day of rest from the hand of the King of Kings. Queen Vashti perished because of her disobedience and all those concubines who did not please the king did not experience that rest because they were couped up in the harem under the watchful ministrations of a eunuch. But Esther, who obtained great favor because of her demeanor wherever she went, set in motion a rest for the people, just by the beauty of her presence.

The word in Greek for ‘disobedience and unbelief’ is apeitheia, from which we get the word ‘apathy’. It is the apathy of those who were presented with the necessary steps for repentance and purification in the preparation season that disqualified them from being chosen.

For those who have been faithful during the painful process of preparation, blessing is appointed. Your barns may be still empty at this moment and the fruit of the season ahead not yet visible, but on the strength of the word that proceeds from an ever-faithful God, you can rest assured that a decree of blessing is already being unfurled over you, to be executed in due season. HANUKKAH MARKS THE BEGINNING OF A SEASON OF BLESSING FOR THE FAITHFUL.

HANUKKAH ALSO MARKS THE RELEASE OF A NEW LEVEL OF AUTHORITY
It is the time when God chooses His appointed signet rings and sets them in place. Bear in mind that 6 years later, Mordecai was given the signet ring of the king (Esth 8:2) and Esther and Mordecai released powerful decrees in the King’s name to counteract all that the enemy had tried to do.

The first day of Hanukkah signifies the day when victory is achieved over an extremely strong attack of the enemy, which has tried to destroy the way you worship God and your faith. It is the day when liberation and rebuilding and restoration comes to the temple of God, which we are. So if you have had extreme attack and defilement of your physical body in the past season, know that HANUKKAH TRIGGERS VICTORY OVER THE ENEMY and you can rejoice that restoration is available to you as you rededicate your temple to the service of the Living God. The enemy has tried to destroy your testimony in the land, to prevent the light and truth of God from influencing those who dwell around you. But you are still here, still loving Jesus despite your suffering, still holding on to His word of hope for all that is ahead and now, even though you feel that you have lost all the anointing you once had and there is only enough oil to serve the Lord for one day, He is about to pour out a miraculous supply of fresh oil within you.

Remember, during the first Hanukkah, fresh oil was being made for the temple, ie. pressing is happening for 7 days away from the site of the temple, while in the temple, the remnant of oil found for one day gave enough light for 7 days!!! Esther had been cleansed and prepared for a year before 1st tevet, 7th day Hanukah. The bride had made herself ready. She had been through her pressing and the fresh oil was within her, even though she did not know it, (like the spare oil of the 5 wise virgins). So she got to go into the bridal chamber and the door was closed to the foolish virgins who did not prepare properly.

HANUKKAH SIGNIFIES THE RETURN TO THE PURPOSES OF GOD
A temple defiled and used for pagan revelry was restored and realigned to God’s standard of cleanliness and holiness. It is very significant that on December 6 at 6pm Jerusalem time, President Trump declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel and the moving of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The next day, December 7, he celebrated Hanukkah in the White House (6 days early). The previous year, in that same White House, a president who treated Israel with disdain supposedly celebrated Hanukkah, but this year, the White House was realigned and truly fit to celebrate such a festival.

Tel Aviv is called one of the gay capitals of the world and the move of the embassy and connection away from there to acknowledge Jerusalem as the true capital is to realign with God. It is a move away from uncleanness toward holiness.

Like Esther on the morning of the 1st Tevet, adorned for her husband, the Bride of the Lamb is admired. She is radiant with the glory of God as He is glorified within her, and she is the light of the world. She is presented to the world as she arises and shines while dense darkness is on the world.

HANUKKAH MARKS THE COMPLETION OF PREPARATION FOR THE TABERNACLE IN THE WILDERNESS
The 25th Kislev is also the day when the tabernacles components in the wilderness commissioned by Moses were completed. It was not assembled and put together until 3 months later, but all the preparation work was complete. The woman who flees into the wilderness in Rev 12 is that tabernacle, intricately and beautifully wrought in minute detail. WE are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works that God has prepared beforehand for us to walk in. The workmanship is complete, but perhaps the good works have yet to make themselves plain.

If you feel that God has been working very intensely in every small detail within you and yet you are without connection and don’t understand how you fit into the big plan for the days ahead, do not fret. There is a waiting period, a journeying as the cloud moves to the appointed place for the assembling and coupling together of every facet of this amazing tabernacle of His presence in the wilderness. Just be carried along when the cloud moves and you will discover your appointed place soon enough.

Have a blessed Hanukkah!

Author: Christine Beadsworth

Christine Beadsworth lives in Somerset West, South Africa. She is an artist, poet and speaker, also writing and publishing articles under the ‘Fresh Oil Releases’ banner. She has authored several books, which she offers for free on her blog, Fresh Oil Releases. In 2017, she started a new site for posting her podcasts, called Fresh Air Releases.

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