The Feast of the Circumcision and Name of Jesus
The Eighth Day of Christmas
January 1
(New Year’s Day)
On this day, the Holy Church celebrates with great joy the Feast of the Circumcision and Name of Jesus.
The world wakes up groggy from an evening of wild partying, ostensibly to welcome in the civil New Year. In contrast, the Church wakes up and calls her children to come together to praise God for an odd gift: the circumcision of a baby Jewish boy two millennia ago. “What?” the world asks with bleary eyes. “Are you serious?”
We are indeed. Today marks the eighth day since Christians celebrated Jesus’ birth. Eight days after He was born, brought their baby boy to receive circumcision (Luke 2:21). As part of the ceremony, the child was named Jesus, meaning “the Lord saves,” the very name the angel had foretold to His parents.
Jews had been circumcising their male children ever since the days of Abraham. Circumcision brought that child into God’s covenant promise with Abraham, marking him as one of God’s own. This people eagerly waited for God to keep the biggest part of His promise to Abraham: the day that all the families of the earth would be blessed through one of Abraham’s descendants. The sign of God’s promise was put, one must say, in a logical spot. They bore on their bodies a constant reminder of the promised Seed, the Savior, the Blessed One.
When Mary and Joseph had Jesus circumcised, the circumcision to end all circumcisions took place. Christ’s active and passive obedience are both confessed here. Actively, the Giver of the Law humbly stooped to stand under the Law in order to fulfill it perfectly for all people. No human born from Adam in the usual way could ever do this. With His circumcision, Jesus’ unbroken “yes” to the will of His Father had begun. Passively, His infant bloodshed portended a greater bloodshed to come. It foreshadowed already the blood pressed from Him in the garden, running down His face from the cruel crown of thorns, staining the wood of the cross. This was why He came: to spill His blood. That’s how He would provide the covering that blots out the sin of the world. All of it. That’s how the blessing would come.
In the earliest days of the Church after Pentecost, some false teachers insisted that to be a Christian a man needed to be circumcised and told to keep the Law of Moses. In a way, Paul agreed, and yet more profoundly, he disagreed. He agreed that circumcision was important, but that it only benefited the person who kept the whole Law, and did so perfectly. The only person who could do this, of course, is Jesus. When you are baptized into Him, His circumcision and perfect obedience are counted as your very own. Everything that is His is signed over to you, put to your account in the water with God’s Word.
What does the circumcision of a newborn Jewish boy two thousand years ago have to do with you today? Absolutely everything!
PRAYER: Lord God, you made Your beloved Son, our Savior, subject to the Law and caused Him to shed His blood on our behalf. Grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit that our hearts may be made pure from all sins; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
William Weedon Celebrating the Saints 10-11