Circumcision and Name of JESUS
December 31, 2021
Luke 2:21
Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Alexandria, VA
“Eight days were completed.” Completed … or better, fulfilled. For this is no mere random passage of time. “The days were fulfilled” reveals the jurisdiction of God over all things. God is sovereign over time itself. This event, and every event recorded in Scripture, is governed by His plan.
We track the passage of time with calendars. Modern life requires us to juggle multiple calendars: civil holidays and tax deadlines; work calendars, school calendars, family birthdays and anniversaries. We Christians have our own calendar, often out of step with what everyone else is doing. The liturgical calendar reminds us that Christians are to be different.
We learn from the Gospels something about Joseph and Mary: they are pious. They follow the liturgical calendar, and they also conform their personal lives to what the Law of Moses expected, down to the day. “And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child, His name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.”
Eight days is one week. We would call it seven days, but the Jews counted inclusively, i.e., the first day is “one,” not “zero.”
But the number here is more significant than the method of counting. Eight is the number of eternity. On the sixth day God made man, and on the seventh day He rested. But man fell into death and corruption. A restoration was needed, an eighth day for a new creation. St. Peter makes a point of connecting the number eight to the new creation that happens in Baptism: “The Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water. There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism” (1 Pt 3.20f). The number eight symbolizes eternity, salvation, liberation from the bondage of corruption.
Circumcision also is related to man’s corruption. This strange ritual served to separate the Israelites as people with whom God has made a covenant. But why circumcision? Because human generation—the means by which procreation takes place—is since the fall of our first parents the way the curse is passed on. Every child conceived by a man and woman is cursed with the contagion of concupiscence. From conception children are sinners. From birth children are filled with death. Circumcision was God’s promise to the Jews that He would liberate them from this. Jews brought their baby boys to circumcision on the eighth day, one week from their birth.
But circumcision remained lacking. It was bloody and painful, and applied only to boys. The greater thing was yet to come: the Baptism which Jesus institutes. God’s Word teaches us that Baptism fulfills and replaces circumcision:
In [Christ] you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. (Col. 2.11-14)
At circumcision, baby boys received their names. Joseph and Mary obey God’s angel. They don’t choose a name that sounds good to them, or has been in the family; they follow God’s instructions to the letter. They name Mary’s son JESUS. Do you remember what it means? YHWH Saves (or, YHWH Is Salvation). This Child is YHWH, the enfleshed God. In Jesus the Second Person of the Trinity has assumed the human nature into His Person. So He is both true God, begotten of the Father from all eternity, and also true Man, born of the virgin Mary. Jesus is Immanuel, God with us. That’s why we chose the birth and the worship of Jesus for our triptych: it visually represents the name of our church.
Finally, notice the term conception in God’s Word: “His name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.” When conception happens, that’s already a human being, a separate person with DNA distinctive from the mother. From earliest times, Christians prohibited abortion. Christians invented adoption by gathering up children the Romans discarded.
God forgives sin. If you’ve been involved in abortion, God loves you and forgives you. This year, He wants us to be a people of life.
Your time is governed by the Lord. This is the time into which God has placed you. This is the year, the time, the hour He has appointed for you to accomplish your telos, your purpose in life. That starts by living from and in the calendar. The civil calendar is relatively unimportant. The Church’s calendar is appointed for your growth. Sure, it’s manmade, but it’s centered around particular events in Christ’s history: His birth, His circumcision, His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, His crucifixion, His resurrection, His ascension, and Pentecost. The Church Year is us following Jesus through His acts of salvation.
If God has given you children, the Holy Family is given you as an example: nothing supersedes the Christian nurture and catechesis of your children.
And for all of us, the account of Jesus’ circumcision should point us to the greater circumcision He instituted. You are baptized. That is your identity, above all else.
So what will 2022 bring? To ask this question is to believe that we are governed by fate or random chance. 2022 will bring what every year brings: Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, Trinity, Reformation. You will get older. But aging is not your destiny. Resurrection and the kingdom of God is your end. This year, work to fulfill the vocations God has given you. Protect the innocent children. Live from your Baptism. For the NAME given to this Child has been inspired upon you: YHWH Saves; the LORD Is Salvation. +INJ+