Named & Circumcised

 

Jesu Juva

St. Luke 2:21                                                                   

January 1, 2023

Circumcision and Name of Jesus              

Dear saints of our Savior~

          And at the end of eight days, when He was circumcised, He was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb (Luke 2:21).

          That may very well be the shortest Holy Gospel reading of the entire church year.  It’s one little verse, easily overlooked in Luke’s lovely account of our Lord’s birth and infancy.  But Luke was also a fine historian; and this verse demonstrates his careful attention to detail.  Up until this verse, Luke doesn’t

refer to Jesus by name.  In Bethlehem’s manger, He is simply a swaddled, nameless newborn.  When the shepherds visit, they don’t ask the first question that most of us would ask at the birth of a child:  What’s his name?  He didn’t have one for His first week outside the womb.  But on this day—the Eighth Day—He is named Jesus.  And along with that name, He gets the mark of the Covenant: He is circumcised.

          While the rest of the world is nursing a new year’s hangover, making resolutions for 2023, or just settling in for some college bowl games and parades, the church sets aside this day—the Eighth Day of Christmas—to celebrate the name and circumcision of Jesus.  And unless you are Jewish, this seems like a really weird thing to celebrate.  In fact, a less experienced preacher would likely seek to avoid this delicate matter altogether—or perhaps do damage to the piety of some by leading off with a few questionable jokes or a reference to a bad Seinfeld episode.  Far be it from me.  Your piety is safe.

          The significance of the 8^th day goes all the way back to Leviticus (nothing funny in Leviticus).  In the Old Testament, there was absolutely no notion of delaying—or waiting—to circumcise until the child was old enough to decide for himself.  There was no concept of an “age of accountability.”  But rather, on the eighth day of life, every baby boy born in Israel received the sign of the covenant and became a son of the covenant, an Israelite.  And together with that new identity, he also received his name.

          As it was for every baby Jewish boy, so it was for Jesus.  He is given the name Y’shua, Jesus, which means, The Lord saves.  As the angel announced to Joseph, “He will save His people from their sins.”  And how will He accomplish this?  How will He save His people from their sins?  By becoming obedient to the Law, by becoming a son of the covenant, by becoming an Israelite, by shedding His blood, and by freeing those held captive by sin and death.  This is precisely why the Son of God became flesh and was born.  He was “born of a woman, born under Law, to redeem those under the Law.”  And right then and there, on the eighth day of life, Jesus goes under the knife and accomplishes His very first act of obedience, with a lifetime of obedience to follow.

          Obedience can be painful—a lesson Jesus likely learned on the eighth day.  This day affords us the chance to put a dagger in the heart of that heresy in the children’s Christmas song.  You know, about how, “the little Lord Jesus, no crying He makes.”  I doubt that was true when He laid in the manger.  And I doubly doubt that was true on the eighth day when He experienced in His flesh what it means to be “under the Law.”  But we should consider this pain a prelude—a prelude to the cross.

          To fully understand the significance of this day, it’s necessary to know this about Jesus:  He is the Second Adam.  He is all of humanity in one Person.  He’s the stand-in substitute for the entire human race.  He embodies all of humanity in His own body.  And now, listen to where St. Paul takes this fact in Colossians chapter 2:  In [Christ] you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead (2:11-12).

          Now, the theology in this passage runs deep and wide, so bear with me.  This means that as both God and Man, Jesus can do the impossible.  It means that He is able to embrace others into Himself so that what happens to Him also happens to them—in Him.  This means that you—in Jesus—are also circumcised.  No, it wasn’t done to you; it was done to Jesus.  But being done to Jesus, you were included in His circumcision.  Got it?  We could say that, when Jesus was circumcised, the whole world became a Jew—male and female, boy and girl, it matters not.  And, because we are all circumcised in Christ, it means that circumcision (the painful kind, done by hands)—well, it becomes completely free and optional in the New Testament. 

          In the New Testament we have a new and better gift which unites us with Christ.  Circumcision was a physical way of demonstrating how our sinful flesh—our Old Adam—needs to be put to death.  For you, that now happens in Holy Baptism.  There in that cleansing splash your Old Adam is drowned.  And you are united with Jesus—joined to Him in His death and burial, and raised to new life with Him through faith.

          Many years ago one of our Sunday school teachers was trying to teach about Jesus’ circumcision to a group of children around the age of ten or eleven (and you thought your job was hard).  Afterward, the teacher reported to me how one perplexed little boy had raised his hand with a serious question on the subject of our Lord’s circumcision:  What’s the point? He asked.  What’s the point, indeed?

          I said earlier that His circumcision was our Lord’s first act of obedience, with a lifetime of obedience to follow.  Consider that phrase, a lifetime of obedience.  We, of course, can barely conceive of such a thing.  A lifetime of obedience?  How about just a calendar year of obedience?  For our years and our days are spent evading and avoiding obedience at all costs.  A look back at just the past year for each of us reveals a trail of sin and shame, of breaking God’s commands, of rebellion against God, and of despising those He has placed in our lives to be loved and cared for.  We’ve taken a permanent vacation from our God-given vocations.  While our Lord’s obedience was painful; our quest for pleasure means that we always, always avoid the painful choice of service and sacrifice.

          What’s the point?  Jesus is obedient where you are not.  He was obedient unto death—even death on a cross.  Jesus kept the Law perfectly (beginning at His circumcision) and He does so in your place, in your stead, because you are baptized into Him—connected to Him through faith.  And through that same faith, His perfect obedience becomes yours.  It is your clothing, your covering, your justification before God.  For the sake of Jesus Christ, your Savior—and solely for His sake—you stand before God as though you hadn’t sinned.  You stand before God as an obedient son or daughter of the New Covenant.

          Because Jesus was circumcised for you—because Jesus kept every commandment for you—because Jesus died and rose for you—it means that on the first day of this New Year you are free.  You are free to be who you really are in Christ—free to do good and show mercy to your neighbor—free to serve those around you, laying down your life, enduring pain for the sake of others.  You don’t do this because you need to earn God’s favor, but because you already have it in Christ.  You have nothing in this world left to lose.  And if we only believed that, it would really be a happy New Year, come what may.

          None of us knows what the New Year will bring in terms of health, wealth, and love.  Our times are in the Lord’s hands.  Everything we hope for and plan for always has “if the Lord wills it” scribbled across the page, as St. James says.  But we do know this, and we do have this as our certainty in uncertain times:  We have Jesus’ obedience under the Law, His perfect righteousness, innocence and blessedness.  And we have His Holy Name, the Name by which we are saved, by which He saves us from our sins.

          So greet the swiftly changing year With joy and penitence sincere.  Rejoice!  Rejoice!  With thanks embrace Another year of grace.

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.