The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.
‹Samuel Johnson›
Atlantis: the domain of the Stingray
1Jan
2014
Wed
15:40
author: Stingray
category: Sermons
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Circumcision and Name of Jesus

Luke 2:21

Circumcision and Name of Jesus 2014 Wordle
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Dear fellow firstborn sons of God by way of baptism into the Son of God, Merry Eighth Day of Christmas. Today, your God fulfills the law for you. For, on this day the infant Son of God, Creator of the universe, goes under the knife to mark Himself as a son of the covenant. He is of the people of God as He receives circumcision on His eighth day.

Today, the only-begotten Son of God, the firstborn Son of Mary, first sheds His blood in your place, redeeming you from the law of the covenant, which law states that all eight-day old sons of Israel are to do. And, just as the shedding of His blood on the cross some 33 years later would complete the whole of the law for you then—it is finished (cf. John 19:30)—so, now, in the circumcision of your Lord, your circumcision is completed, too.

Let’s face it, here is a law that very few of you, if any, have kept. It is still the law of God, and it still accuses all of you. I won’t ask for a show of hands, but how many can say that they were circumcised on their eighth day? For many of us men, if it happened at all, it was performed on us as a medical surgical procedure shortly after birth. Yet there may be some men who have not seen a scalpel there. And for you ladies...well, the anatomy just doesn’t lend itself to the same thing.

What’s more, even if we would or could count this circumcision as a mark of being sons of the covenant, St. Paul has a little something to tell us about that:

You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law? For “the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you,” as it is written. For circumcision is indeed profitable if you keep the law; but if you are a breaker of the law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. (Romans 2:23-25)

Your circumcisions, dear fellow firstborn sons, is profitable to you as a mark of being a son of the covenant so long as you keep the law. Otherwise, as St. Paul put it, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. In essence, so what? You may have kept one law, but you break all of the others. And, dear hearers, not one of you can say that you keep all of the law. Furthermore, simply keeping this one law does not redeem you from having to keep the rest of the law. No, there are sinners present here...every one of you.

Yet, each of us here would consider ourselves sons of the covenant. And it is meet and right so to do, for we bear the new mark of the covenant. As St. Paul also put it, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love,” (Galatians 5:6) and, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.” (Galatians 6:15) In Christ Jesus, you are a new creation! You have entered the Eighth Day, the first day of the new creation, and this by way of baptism. As I have mentioned several times before in your hearing, there is a reason that, traditionally, baptismal fonts are eight-sided—it is representative of being born anew and being made part of the new creation.

Or, look at it this way. You are baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection. That is by way of baptism, you died with Him. This is your death to sin—for you, by way of your baptism into His death, are cleansed from all sin and iniquity. You are sprinkled clean by the blood of the very Lamb of God, shed for you on the cross, and even, you might say, in His circumcision. But, you have also been baptized into His resurrection. This is your new life—to live before God in righteousness and purity forever, because you are a New Man in Christ. Christ, who on the sixth day died, rested in the grave on the seventh, and on the next day, broke forth from the grave in victory—the Eighth Day, the first day of the New Creation. “Behold, I make all things new,” says He who sat on the throne. (Revelation 21:5) “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

So, shall we liken circumcision as the cutting away of the flesh? No more! Dear fellow firstborn sons of God, you are circumcised by way of your baptism into Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. His completing of the law is yours. It is finished—every bit of it—for you!

For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. In Him 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. (Colossians 2:9-14)

Your baptisms now mark you as one redeemed by Christ the crucified. It is the new mark of the covenant and that which declares you to be sons of the covenant—firstborn sons of God! (cf. Hebrews 12:22-24)

This is just as it was with what you heard on Sunday. These two lessons go hand-in-hand; fitting, since this past Sunday’s pericope immediately follows today’s. On Sunday, we heard of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus fulfilling the law by bringing a pair of birds to the temple in order that Mary’s firstborn son may be redeemed from YHWH, for all firstborn males belong to YHWH by way of the tenth plague in Egypt. (cf. Exodus 13:11-16, Leviticus 12:6-8) Immanuel completed this for you, too, in His own presentation at the temple, the sacrifice of the two bird, and His death on the cross and resurrection from the grave. It is finished. Today, we hear of the Christ completing the law of circumcision for you. His flesh was cut away for you. It is finished. These ceremonial laws no longer have bearing on you because, by way of your baptism, Christ’s doing of them for you is your doing of them. It is finished.

But, there is still the matter of living as the Baptized. You are baptized; you who have been washed clean and made part of the New Creation. Baptism is what now marks you as a son of the covenant, so it should follow that your baptism is profitable so long as you live as one who is baptized. Well, do you? Do you honor your Creator and Redeemer by all that you do? Do you live, as the Psalmist says, such that the will and law of God are your delight? (cf. Psalm 1:2, 40:8, et al) If so, then you would not need to be here, just as someone who is not ill or dying does not need to see a doctor or be in the hospital. You know as well as I do that the law says do one thing, and you do another; that it says do not do another thing, and you do it anyway. That is not how one who delights in God’s law lives.

But, recall, it is finished! Recall, also, what the baptismal life is: Baptizing with water ”indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.” As Luther wrote in 1517, “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He said, ‘Repent,’ willed that the whole life of believers should be repentance.” What is repentance? Repentance is sorrow and contrition over sin, from knowing the law of God and how far short of its requirements you have come. That is how one who’s delight is the law and will of God lives. Graciously, to one such as this, God’s response is, “It is finished.”

Then, he points to His Son. He points you to the Son of Mary at His eighth day. Having been circumcised—for you—He now receives the name He was given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb: Jesus. His name is Y’shua, a conjunction of YHWH and y’shoah: YHWH is salvation. Jesus is your Salvation. He points you to the cross, whereupon your Salvation hangs, the Sacrifice that won your salvation. Jesus is the completion of the law for you. Jesus is the propitiation for your sins—the sacrifice by which your sins are forgiven. Jesus, because you could not pay it, paid the price that redeemed you from your sins, bought you back from them into holiness, from death to life, from hell to eternity with God and His Christ in eternity, the new creation. Baptized into His life, death, and resurrection, Jesus is the Author and Completion of your faith. He is the fulfillment of the law for you and your forgiveness for your not keeping of the law.

All of this is wrapped up in the name He was given—Jesus. This is what Jesus means, and what it means most as He dies your death on the cross. And all of this is exemplified on this day in the completion of the law that He does for you today: becoming a son of the covenant for you, that you, being baptized into His life, death, and resurrection, become through Him a firstborn son of God and son of the covenant. You belong to God, a son and fellow heir with His only-begotten Son and Mary’s firstborn Son, Jesus Christ. In Jesus Christ, your being baptized into the Eighth Day, you are a new creation, and everything is done already for you. Therefore, you are forgiven for all of your sins.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Download media: 20140101.circumcisionandnameofjesus.mp3 (5.78 MiB)
audio recorded on my digital recorder
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