The Circumcision Of Jesus

The Christmas celebration for believers continues well beyond December 25, all the way to January 6 when Eastern Orthodox Christians celebrate Christ's birth and western Christians the coming of the Magi. The appointed Gospel for the First Sunday of the Christmas celebration is Luke 2:22-40. This text is all about Jesus' and Mary's purification and the family's encounter with two devout seniors who lived in Jerusalem and spent their days at the Temple. Let's start with Jesus' circumcision and its meaning for us now two thousand years later.

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 ESV

The reference is to Genesis 17:1-14 and Leviticus 12:3, the law about a boy child's circumcision. All this seems remote and strange to us. In fact not all Christian parents have their sons circumcised. The American Academy of Pediatrics, for example, does not recommend it as a routine procedure for newborn male babies. Nor are believers spiritually bound by such rules since the coming of Christ. The Apostle Paul writes about about circumcision as it was connected to God's mystery, now revealed in Christ:

Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 

In him also 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. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him. Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance (i.e. soma in Gk. = body) belongs to Christ. - Col 2:6-17 ESV

The organ of generation, that bodily part by which the LORD God brings children into the world, that organ had a sign connected to it since the days of Abraham. The foreskin was removed on the eighth day after birth as a sign of the covenant the LORD made with Abraham and all his descendants. For the rest of his life every male was unavoidably reminded of this covenant. Like the rainbow (Gen. 9:12-13), this sign pointed to the fact that God mysteriously and graciously chose Abraham's children as His own. Both a man and his wife were reminded of this covenant when they had intercourse. They belonged to the LORD and so did the children the LORD would create through that intercourse. This is also why Moses called upon the Israelites to "circumcise the foreskin of your heart". The LORD of heaven and earth in love chose them above all people, not because of their numbers or their goodness. He chose them out of His own grace and mercy (Deut. 7:7-8; Psalms 115:1). Consequently they were to remove anything that hindered them from devoting themselves to the LORD and His plans for their lives.

In Jesus' day the Jews had typically distorted that meaning of circumcision. They turned it into yet another way by which they were gaining the LORD's favor. They made it a good work they performed to show how devoted they were. It had become what Paul calls a "human tradition." Away with this, says Paul. Circumcision and all the other laws about food and drink, festivals and a Sabbath are but shadows. They served a purpose for believers in the days of the old covenant. But those days have come to an end. Christ is the body that cast a shadow in former days. But now he is present and has completed his work. He has taken us and our sins with him to the cross. He paid our debts. They were once and for all eternity set aside, nailed to the cross. So we are free from guilt, shame and sin. We died with Christ and rose again. This is the message of our baptism. And this is also why all those rules and laws no longer apply to us.

And yet Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day. Why? So that it might be clear he was identified completely with God's chosen people, even as he has declared himself now to be the Savior of all, both Jews and Gentiles. What a wonder and what a wonderful reason to celebrate Christmas.