Such a little reading - the tiniest of the year - and yet so much to say. I really wanted to just read you Dr. Luther’s sermon for the day, since he had so much packed into it, but I figured I better make it a bit more concise, but I’m stealing all his points. They were splendid.
First of all: the silliness of circumcision. To human reason it certainly did look foolish indeed. And among the neighbors of the Jews with their public baths it became a matter of mockery. Those silly Jews. Why ever would they do that to themselves? But the ways of God always appear foolish to men. Noah’s big boat all built in the middle of land with nary an ocean in sight? Lot’s hightailing it out of Sodom without a backward glance, leaving all his property behind? Moses and Aaron threatening Pharaoh with destruction if he wouldn’t let God’s people go? Oh, the list goes on and on. Foolish they seemed, and yet we see who was right in the long run - the ones who trusted human wisdom or those who believed God’s threats and His promises. And it reaches right into the New Testament itself. That the death of one man should bring life to all? The splash of water really wipes out sin? A morsel of bread and sip of wine is the true Body and Blood of the Son of God and brings eternal life into us? Reason laughs, mocks such things, calls us fools for believing them.
And God uses them precisely to humble our proud reason and teach us not to rely upon our own smarts, but to build entirely upon His outrageous promises, joined to these outward signs. For if we do, then we do discover wisdom hidden in them - deep and yet present. Profound wisdom. You just have to be like a child to see it.
So with the circumcision our Lord underwent on this day. Why circumcise THAT member? Why not the tongue or the hand? asks Dr. Luther. Because what’s wrong with us has to do with our whole NATURE. Our whole being. We come from corrupted seed and the corruption is passed on through our fathers. We aren’t sinners because we sin; we sin because we are sinners. And so to show that it’s the root of the whole matter that’s gone wrong, circumcision. So what needs to be changed is not behavior, but our very selves, our hearts. The core of our very being. Each time you pray: “Create in me a clean heart, O God” you are crying out for that of which circumcision is the sign.
But what about the women? They had no such sign? No. For this was to point to Christ, who would be born of woman, but not of male seed. He would be born indeed, but not from corrupted seed, not born in our sin at all. Born holy yet fully human and so not needing circumcision. Free from the curse, free from death itself.
And yet. And yet He chooses to receive it. Places Himself under the Law for us so that through His keeping of the Law death might lose all claim upon us. His bloodshed today points to the greater bloodshed ahead - when death would seize and take him, it would do so utterly unjustly, for death had no claim on the Sinless One. And that is how death loses its power over all who are in Him. All who are in Him will rise at the last day and proclaim that death has wrongly taken them too: for in Christ they were innocent and death therefore could not claim them justly as its own.
And why was it the 8th day? To point to that time that is beyond our endless sevens which sooner or later carry us to the grave. To point to that time which is the Endless Day which Christ would open for us by His resurrection from the dead. Circumcision pointed to that even as Baptism puts us squarely into it. If you look up here and count the sides, you’ll see it. 8 of them. 8 for the 8th Day into which Christ will bring you - a day on the other side of bloodshed, death, destruction. A day where the sun never sets and the joys are eternal. Not a new year with its hopes and fears. A new day that never ends with no fear and eternal joys. Circumcision promised that One would come from Abraham’s Seed to usher in that blessing for every family of the earth. Baptism, which corresponds to Circumcision, opens the door to it, dumps you into it, promises you that it is yours.
Lastly, we note that the name Jesus is given on this day. Jesus, for He would save His people from their sins. Jesus, the name assigned by the angel before His birth, but which is claimed as His own on this 8th day of His appearing among us. And as Christ received His name this day, so on the Day we are put into Christ in Baptism, we receive our name, a name by which God has known us from all eternity. A name that He wrote before the ages in the Lamb’s book of life.
And so, people loved by God, let this new year be for us a true feast of the circumcision, a true living in our Baptism. Let us in Christ lay aside the old sinful self, corrupted by its deceitful desires. Let us let that old boy drown and die in the waters of Baptism and receive instead from our Lord our new self, a new heart whose will is aligned with God’s and who lives by faith in God’s promises - no matter how foolish those promises may appear to human reason. Let this new year be for us a time of rising up into the newness of life that is ours in Jesus Christ who this day was cut in the flesh for us that we might indeed become in Him the true circumcision who worships God in the spirit and puts no confidence in our own flesh.
Now greet the swiftly changing year
With joy and penitence sincere.
Rejoice, rejoice, with thanks embrace
Another year of grace!
Remember now the Son of God
And how He shed His infant blood.
Rejoice, rejoice with thanks embrace
Another year of grace!
His love abundant far exceeds
The volume of a whole year’s needs.
Rejoice, rejoice with thanks embrace
Another year of grace!
