Circumcison and Holy Name

Well, we made it to 2021!

Can we resolve to have no more global pandemics?

Do people still make new years resolutions?

I wonder if it is going out of style? Well, at least according to a quick google search our modern practice of making New Years resolutions started in the 17th century.

And since I read it on the internet it must be true.

Well, New Years is a time for a new start for some, a new resolve of some kind of another, usually it is some area of self improvement.

They can even be aimed at creating a new kind of self, a new identity.

Seeking to find a new self, to grow, to change, to find a true real or authentic self.

And the idea idea is that to find our true self, we must create it. As I saw recently the next 365 days is a blank book, and we are the author.

The problem is that the next 365 days are not blank, and we don’t create our own identity out of thin air, actually our identity is more something that we are given, something that we live and grow into into, something we receive, not what we create. Our identity is something that flourishes in communal activities with a shared common life.

So this new year, let’s resolve to embrace our true self, our true identity.

This morning we are looking at the circumcision and naming of Jesus just 8 days after his birth.

And what we will see is that Jesus circumcision and naming has a lot to say about our true self and our true identity.

So first what we see is that Jesus was circumcision initiated him into a people, a family.

Jesus was included in a people

Circumcision for God’s people was the ritual that marked them as God’s people. It symbolized and ratified that they belonged to God, and to one another.

In Genesis 17 God instituted circumcision as a sign of the covenant, a covenant is a formal bond of love, and circumcision a sign of the bond of love, as well as the official ratifying of the bond of love between God and his people.

Genesis 17:10–11 ESV

This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.

Circumcision is the outward and visible sign to the invisible covenant, that is the invisible bond of love God has for his people.

And then if you are looking at Genesis chapter 17 look at verse 12

English Standard Version Chapter 17

12 He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised.

The sign of God’s bond of love is given to the children. Circumcision initiates them into a certain kind of people, a specific family.

In Scripture God does not deal with isolated individuals, but with individuals in a family as part of a people.

So Jesus through circumcision was initiated into the people of God.

Jesus did not appear out of thin air, he is the great grandson of David, the great grandson of Abraham, the one whom God established the covenant of circumcision with

Illustration:

Recently I saw this video of Tiger Woods with his 11 year old son Charlie. They played in a father son golf tournament. It was uncanny how much Charlie looked like his father Tiger. There was this one video of them warming up and you see Tiger hit a ball and at the end of his follow through he kind of spins the club in his hands as he lets it drop behind him. Then you see Charlie right next to him swing hit the ball and the he spins the club in his hands and lets it drop behind him.

Where did he learn that spin from? From watching his dad of course. If Charlie was not the son of Tiger he would not be doing that.

Application:

Who we are, our identity, our selfhood is something that is given to us.

We learn who we are in our family, our community, our friends, are people.

Jesus was initiated into the Jewish family, into God’s people. It was something that was given to him, Jesus had to learn who he was, and this is a great mystery, how as fully God and fully man this works itself out. But what we do know is that we should not diminish his fully human side. As fully human he had to learn who he was.

Our true identity is something that we are given, something that we learn.

Except today we are told quite the opposite, we are told that we are to create our own identity, that there is no institution or authority that can tell me who I am.

We are told we must go and find it on my own, determine it for myself. We need wide open spaces as the Dixie Chicks sing.

The problem is that this is not the way God created people. We cannot avoid our identity being shaped by our community, and people before us.

Who are your people?

To grow into your true self, your people must be Jesus people.

If the church, Jesus family, if they are not your people, your identity will be formed in some other way, by some other group, or tribe, or family. At school, on the internet, at work, or in play. To grow into your true self you need Jesus people.

In Jesus God humbled himself to become initiated into a particular family and a particular people.

We should not think that we somehow are above that.

Jesus circumcision included him into a people, And his circumcision also

Pointed toward his exclusion

The ritual act of circumcision symbolized the the purification necessary for a covenant relationship with God, a bond of love, to be established.

For we see when circumcision was established in Genesis 17

English Standard Version Chapter 17

So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

To be included, a cleansing needed to take place.

In the Old Testament we see that the consequence of not being circumcised, is the same consequence for those who fail to make themselves ritually clean before doing something that requires being clean. Circumcision was a ritual for purification.

Circumcision was the cutting away of a natural part of the body, and as such it is a symbol that humanity by our nature is impure and that judgement (cutting off) is necessary for purification, and the establishment of a covenant, a bond of love with God.

Jesus who is pure and clean and without sin, does not need a cleansing. Yet he receive it. His circumcision points to judgement, of being cut off from God and his people completely. His circumcision points to his death on the cross.

Jesus death on the cross is the ultimate judgment of God necessary for our purification.

Circumcision in general and Jesus circumcision in particular points to his ultimate exclusion,

Jesus was willingly cut off, so that we might be brought in to the life of God.

For it is in the life of God, that we find our true self.

Illustration:

I wish that everyone would read the confessions of St. Augustine.

For in his confessions he is a man searching.

He searches everywhere looking for truth, for himself, for God.

He is more honest with his struggle than most of us today.

In it he said “I longed for the happy life, but was afraid of the place where it has its seat, and fled from it at the very same time I was seeking for it.”

He looked everywhere for his souls rest, and ultimately found that his true self is one that can only be found in God.

It is not that he had to bring his true self to God and that brought rest for his soul, that is not how it works.

It is only being included into God’s life that he found his true self.

We are only our true and authentic selves, our real selves so long as we are found in God. You cannot be true to yourself if you are not found in God.

If we live cut off from God and his life we are living a lie, for we cannot find our true self apart from the life of God.

Application:

Jesus was cut off so that we might be brought in. His circumcision points to his exclusion on the cross and our inclusion in God’s life.

We actually find our self in beholding the face of God.

As we marvel and revel in who God is we discover our true selves.

As Augustine says, God “is more inward than my most inward part and higher than the highest element within me.”

To know God is to know ourselves. And to truly know ourselves, is to see our creator. For you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Jesus circumcision pointed to his exclusion and our inclusion and we also see

as part of the ritual of Jesus circumcision, is his naming and we see that

Jesus was named for us

Luke 2:21: He was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

God names himself here. The messenger from God gives the name of Jesus, which means savior.

God’s name, his names, in Scripture is more significant than what we think of when we think of a name. In Scripture God’s name is the same thing as God himself. An example of this is in Romans 10

Romans 10:13 ESV

For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

God’s name and identity are intertwined. So for Jesus, his name is who he is, he is savior.

His identity is bound up with those whom he saves.

Illustration:

So next week we will have a baptismal service. And in the service there is this part where we ask the Godparents to name this child. It used to be the case that just like the Jews who named a child when they were circumcised, so Christians named their children when they were baptized.

Naming typically happens now mostly in the hospital, but I am still glad we have it in our service.

Because right after they are named they are then baptized.

Two names are spoken:

So next week, Hannah Fryland, I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Their name is subsumed under the name of God. In baptism the name of God is placed on them.

They are marked with the cross on their forehead. The cross, the judgment of God on Jesus, so that he might be savior, and we might be saved.

Application:

In our baptisms we become bearers of the Holy Name of God. God’s name dwells on us, and in us.

We are given new identities to live into and learn and grow in.

For Jesus’s identity is one of savior, and we who have ben given his name, are saved.

So much of what causes us concern today, what causes us to be angry, or anxious is that we are trying to find our salvation in something other than the one who saves. We forget our identity as being saved.

Parents we can look to our children's behavior and success as our salvation. To validate us as parents. But what our children need to know, what they need to feel, that our salvation our identity does not depend on them.

We can try to find salvation our identity in success, winning, or having influence,

or affirmation and relationships or having control,

If we want to find our true self our true identity we must find it in the one who is savior, or else we will be searching for a savior somewhere.

At Jesus circumcision he was named savior and in our baptisms we are named saved. Our names have been absorbed into God’s name, baptized in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion

Our identity is something that we receive and live into, much more than we create. Last night, I was called to live into my true identity again, but this time it was by my 6 year old niece, Lucy. Our cousins spent the night with us last night, and as we were getting ready for bed all the sleeping bags on the floor, we finished reading the Bible and turned out the lights. And Lucy got up and came around to each one of us and took her thumb and made the sign of the cross on our foreheads, the sign of the judgment the sign of his grace, the sign of the savior, the sign of one who is saved.

And as she made the sign moving around the room, she spoke words of life and words of blessing to each one of us. You are God’s child and he loves you and I love you.

This is our true identity, and we can never create it, we can only receive it.