True, outward circumcision [Circumcision and Name of Jesus]

LISTEN TO THE AUDIO HERE

READINGS FROM HOLY SCRIPTURE:

• Numbers 6:22-27

• Romans 11:33-36

• St. Luke 2:21

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Eph 1)
 
A blessed 7^th day of Christmass to you all.
Jesus speaks from His Gospel this morning, saying:
“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.”
 
While the rest of the world celebrates a New Year, we have already done that at the beginning of Advent. What we do is far more important today, for if all we do this day is sit and ponder and wonder at the words “God was circumcised”, it will be enough to occupy us until Jesus Returns. For a Spirit does not have flesh and bone, so what exactly is circumcised on our God and Lord?
 
Well, we can certainly take it as metaphor, if we need to. God does sometimes. He tells us, (Jeremiah 9:25) “Behold, the days are coming…when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh” and “Behold, their ears are uncircumcised, they cannot listen; behold, the word of the Lord is to them an object of scorn” (Jer 6:10). 
 
He also says things like “rend your heart and not your garments and turn unto the Lord your God” (Joel 2:13). So it is not enough, apparently, to simply be circumcised in the regular way and since other things can be “uncircumcised”, ears for example, that sounds like metaphor to me, so far.
 
From this we can say two things. First is that circumcision was taken to be a branding of God. That such delight should be in the people that they would mutilate themselves for God and consent to His ownership. Extremely dangerous thinking, considering what has been done in the name of such zealotry, in history.
 
Second is this “circumcision of the heart”. Certain teachers will try to convince us that this has to be what it means to be saved by faith. It has to be within us. True circumcision, then, must be to experience the inner reality of a circumcised heart that the circumcision in their flesh is to signify, whatever that means. If you would only turn from idolatry and honor your covenant with the Lord, you would have fulfilled its purpose to be a light to the world that illumined the path to the only redeemer God. Oops.
 
And that’s all those certain teachers will give you. Just that cliffhanger. For, not only are we to cut ourselves up, but then we have to pretend that all our idols are gone from us, that we know exactly what God wants from us in His covenant with us, and that its good enough.
 
Now idols should be a no-brainer. We can work hard at being less dependent on our own understanding, riches, or our own impurities. We can even love father and mother less than Him, even though in other places He says to honor them. We can whitewash our halls and our tombs and our brains so that not one thing is in them.
 
And then….what? Never think of anything again? Never have any images in our heads, even when told to think of family? Or God? Is this the kind of God we should be proud to have branded on our skin? One Who can’t make up His mind whether or not He wants actual love or abject obedience?
 
Repent! In your pursuit of holiness, you constantly fall into idolatry. When you think you finally have God’s needs and wants figured out, He seems to turn into the devil and you are a sinner once again. If circumcision were enough, then a circumcision of the heart would be unnecessary. If a circumcision of the heart were enough, then the death of God on the cross would be unnecessary. 
 
If the death of God on the cross were enough then…oh wait it is.
 
First, the covenant. Yes, there is in the covenant stipulations about purity on your part, but as we have already discovered today, it is an unobtainable purity. You would cry “foul” in your sin and take God to small claims court. But this is only the small print. The large print is God’s promise to those with whom He makes this covenant.
 
The Large print, as in the main topic and force of the covenant God makes with man, is to redeem him. God’s covenant is His promise to keep His Name holy in order to keep His Chosen holy. If God keeps His promise, the covenant is on. If we don’t keep our end, the covenant is still on. Our idolatry does not cancel God’s Promise.
 
It is God’s Name on the contract. Plain and simple. As we have already mentioned, it is the Name that is important. Look back to our Old Testament reading today. It does not say “where the covenant is kept by you” I will bless you. It says, when the Name is placed upon the people, I will bless them.
 
This now is the reason why naming Jesus is such a big deal and why it is the only verse we read for today’s Gospel. Now instead of dealing with metaphors like “lord”, “almighty”, and “master” we are given to deal with a man, our equal. When the Name of Jesus is given to Him, that He is the one to save His people from their sins, we are forced to call a man “lord”, “almighty”, and “master”. 
 
When Jesus comes through His mighty work of salvation in His resurrection, He does not allow such lofty, meaningless titles to be the Name that resides upon us for blessing only. He also keeps the Name Jesus and puts it within the context of the Incarnation saying, “baptize in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”.
 
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!” The Name that is above every name, the Name at which every knee shall bow and every tongue confess is the Name on the dotted line of the covenant and it is the Name tattooed in eternally wet water upon your foreheads, from baptism.
 
God gives you His Name in baptism. Not in a contract, not in a dream, in Word and Sacrament; spirit and truth. 
God’s covenant is written upon Christ. It is tattooed into His Body with spear and nail, carved out to fulfill the promise of rescue by His obedience. 
 
True circumcision, then, is baptism, because the Lord of all has promised you that “clean heart that you could not obtain on your own”, through it. True “upholding the covenant” is believing in Christ, Whom God has sent, and receiving His Victory Feast from His hand of flesh and bone. 
 
Yes, the Creator God of flesh and bone has taken on His own flesh and bone all in order that He might rescue you in your flesh and bones. If you speak of idols, why? They are nothing. They don’t exist (1 Cor 8:4)  “…there is no other God but one.”
 
So we have been tricked. We have been lied to. But Jesus is the truth. Jesus is the Name we have been given in order to watch a “man Who is also God” suffer and die for our sakes, to cleanse us as no circumcision ever could. Jesus is the Name we have been given to witness the first born from the dead in the Easter Resurrection. Jesus is the Name we are given to watch and wait for.
 
Jesus is the Name we are given, such that when idols and sin creep up on us, asking us our names, we simply reply, “I am a Christian” and the darkness is dispelled and the sin is removed, leaving only Christ for us. Jesus is the Name we are given so that on the Last Day, when our Judge asks for our name, we answer “I am Christ’s”.
 
In Christ’s zeal for holiness, He finds the devil, conquers him, and obtains true holiness for men. In the circumcision of Jesus, Who is God and man, He finds the slave contract for obedience, takes it as His own, and writes up a new contract of freedom. 
 
Freedom that we find in our flesh and spirit. The circumcision of the heart and the ear and the flesh and any other physical or metaphorical circumcision that one can squeeze out of God’s Word all find their end in Christ and His work. If Christ doesn’t circumcise you, you are not. 
 
But the promise doesn’t lie in mutilation or branding or self-proclamation. It lies in forgiveness. Forgiveness in Christ. Forgiveness in His wounds, in His work, and in His sacraments. There is no way to the Father’s covenant that is not tattooed with the crucifixion of Jesus, thus Jesus spills the first of His blood today, to point to that.