Cutting a Covenant

Scripture: Genesis 17:1-27

Sermon Title: Cutting a Covenant

           As we continue our sacraments series, we are turning to a sensitive topic today, that being circumcision. That was intended to be a pun, and for the sake of reverence, I’ll try to have that be the only one because there are many more unnecessary ones that could be weaved in. I say the following not for shock value or to intentionally make anyone uncomfortable; I know we have young ears. But this is the practice of cutting off the foreskin on the male penis. I don’t think it’s wrong to be clear about that or a need to hide what was going on. I don’t particularly enjoy talking about our private parts, but God called Abraham and his household and his descendants to do this.

To be clear, what they experienced, at least among the adult males, isn’t comparable to a scrape on your knee or a little papercut. There’s real pain involved and healing that must take place; you’re out of commission for a few days. I’m basing that on what we find in Genesis 34 and Joshua 5. The account in Genesis 34 is quite interesting—you can read it on your own, but verse 25 tells us the men who had been circumcised “were still in pain” three days later. In Joshua 5, we read that circumcision had evidently fallen by the wayside when the Israelites left Egypt, but it needed to be done before going into the Promised Land. Verse 8 tells us, “…They remained where they were in camp until they were healed.” God didn’t numb the nerves which notify the brain of pain; this hurt. As tradition has seen baptism as being the practice that circumcision transitions from, that’s quite a major difference—that there is pain in one and refreshment in the other.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, I believe I was talking to Dave or someone else hanging around after the service last week and I jokingly said one of the trickiest parts for this week would be finding an appropriate picture to go with our slides. With the image of a knife, I think I’ve managed to do alright on that task. It’s not a homemade flint knife like we read of Abraham using, but it’ll do. Especially among men, maybe hearing this account and seeing that knife are enough to make us wince. Circumcising a baby boy in a hospital today is one thing, but reading about a 99-year-old man, his 13-year-old son, and the rest of the males in the household all having this done is a pain-provoking memory.

We’re going to jump right into our points this morning, first of all asking, why would Abraham do this? According to verse 23 and following, he took up the task immediately, “On that very day” after “God went up from him…Abraham took [them] and circumcised them, as God had told him.” He didn’t delay. He didn’t give the men some time to think about it. It sounds like he assembled them, and this was happening. Whatever they had planned to do that day and for the next several days, “Put it on hold. We’re all getting this done.” Maybe it was for the best that the rest of his household didn’t have time to think or dwell on it. But again, why did he do this?

This account continues to build the image of Abraham as an obedient and faithful man of God. I’m not saying he was perfect or that he didn’t have his slip-ups and sins—absolutely he did! But when God called him back in chapter 12 to leave “‘[his] country, [his] people, and [his] father’s household and go to the land [he would] show [him],’” he did it. “So Abram left…” If we jump ahead to Genesis 22, after Sarah had Isaac and he had grown at least to the age of Ishmael in chapter 17, God told Abraham, “‘Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love and go…Sacrifice him…as a burnt offering.’” We read, “Early the next morning Abraham got up,” got everything ready, and “set out for the place God had told him about.” These three occurrences in chapter 12, chapter 17, and chapter 22 are major events and happenings in this man’s life. Each time God told him to do something unfamiliar, something painful, something that didn’t necessarily make sense, but Abraham did it. Why?

Because he trusted God, and with that trust and faith, he would obey him. In each of those passages, there’s some brief phrase that he did as God told him. Rev. Scott Hoezee offers this comment about chapter 17, “To state the merely obvious, Abraham would not have subjected himself or anyone else to this rather painful procedure were it not for the fact that, by the grace of God’s Spirit, he had somehow moved from laughter to renewed faith. In and on his own flesh he now bore the mark of God’s promise…Maybe God’s appearances had been a bit intermittent over the last quarter-century and maybe over time that gave Abraham cause to wonder if God would ever do what he had vowed. But now Abraham carried around with him a sign that would not leave him, would not be intermittent, but that would be as constant as the love of God—the love to which Abraham clung in faith.”

When God speaks, you and I as his people are to listen and obey. The most trustworthy place we have to look and listen for his messages, his communications for us, is his Word. The orthodox church has always believed that, and we trust that the Holy Spirit has guided us to that. We don’t listen and obey simply in an attempt to win his favor. We don’t do it to convince ourselves we deserve his love. We do it because we trust our God. We trust that his ways are always better than ways and plans that we come up with on our own and that conflict with his. We believe that if he allows, God will help us to understand what we don’t understand. The key word that cannot be left out, though, is faith. Being obedient to God isn’t something that anyone or everyone just does or sees themselves having good reason to do—faith is exercised in obedience. It’s actively lived out in love for God and neighbor. Abraham circumcised because he had faith.

For our second point, we dig deeper by turning to the source. What I mean by that is what was God doing? The answer is what we find repeated a number of times in Genesis 17. God was establishing his covenant with Abraham and his descendants after him. Remember last week we talked about a lot about promises—that is what a covenant is at the most basic level. Especially in ancient times, there were sets of terms that each party agreed to, and usually when covenants or treaties were made, we’re not talking about equals—one is more powerful, more esteemed, than the other. But all things considered, a promise was being made. That’s what God was doing: making a promise, and circumcision, according to verse 11, was “the sign of the covenant.” If a man didn’t follow through on the sign, God says in verse 14, he is to be “‘…cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.’”

Hopefully that word “sign” piques our interest a bit because it’s a word that use around sacraments. What that Hebrew word for sign means is a pledge. When God made a covenant with Noah after the flood, the rainbow was the sign. You see it and you’re to remember God won’t send a flood like that ever again. The blood of the lamb put on the doorframes of homes when Passover was instituted, we’ll be looking at that in a few weeks, Lord willing—that was a sign. So too, circumcision was a sign, a pledge to what God was promising.

Obviously, this was important if God said those who didn’t do it would be cut off from his people. Yet as I shared last week about sacraments, the practice is not the thing, but it points to thing. Circumcision is not the thing; it points to the covenant.

The covenant that God made and confirmed with Abram turned Abraham was that he would be the father of many nations and kings would come from him, God would be his God and the God of his descendants, and Canaan would be theirs. Why did God pick circumcision for a sign of that? Scholars point out that we’re talking about the part of the body that is necessary for a male’s part in reproduction, in having these descendants who would be blessed and have God as their God. Abraham and his children had to make babies. God determined that part of his body would bear this mark. God didn’t make him circumcise himself and the other guys “just because,” but he intended it as the “‘sign of the covenant…My covenant in your flesh.’”

In the Heidelberg Catechism, Questions and Answers 69 through 74 are about “holy baptism.” 74 brings up why our tradition baptizes infants. The final part says, “…By baptism, the sign of the covenant, [infants] too should be incorporated into the Christian church and distinguished from the children of unbelievers. This was done in the Old Testament by circumcision…” We apply what we learn in the past to what we do in the present. Part of the children back then circumcised is that they were set apart from others, they were consecrated. There was a particular reason for this happening, even though at eight days old they didn’t know what happened, they didn’t choose it or consent to it. But it was done because it was a sign instructed by God pointing to his work, they were “included in God’s covenant and people.” So, when we baptize infants, we are proclaiming, “…They, no less than adults, are promised deliverance from sin through Christ’s blood and the Holy Spirit who produces faith.” Infant baptism doesn’t save our babies, but it does proclaim God can and God will save his own.

That covenant is what we now live under—the promise of deliverance. What are the terms? Christ has shed his blood and the Holy Spirit must produce faith. You and I respond to that irresistible gift of grace, that effectual gift—if it is offered and God has you set to receive it, there is no way to reject it. Some of us take a bit longer to honor God’s gift, to receive his mercy and grace, but the covenant that God has is all about his saving work.

There’s one more thing I want to point out before we move on, which is we hear the word “everlasting” repeated a few times in Genesis 17. It’s not surprising that the Jews throughout history may be convinced they have rights to land, they and they alone have rights to the one true God, and yet the everlastingness of the covenant is much more about the God who makes the covenant. When we read of God and his acts in the Old Testament, he kept loving his people. The only change when we get to the New Testament, and this was prophesied by Old Testament prophets, is that God also called others into his covenant love and mercy. God promised redemption, which circumcision never provided—and God made the way alone through Jesus Christ. What was God doing? What is he doing? He’s living in covenant with his people.

We come to our final point now: is this a sign that we must be practicing today? Is circumcision something that we must be doing today? The answer is absolutely! I’m not talking about male circumcision, though. Circumcision of the heart is absolutely necessary for Christians.

When we worked through the book of Acts, you may remember we looked at circumcision a little bit. In Acts 15, we read how there were Pharisees who went from Jerusalem to Gentiles who were hearing the gospel and putting their faith in Christ. And the Pharisees were instructing them they needed to be circumcised in the flesh. Their men needed to be literally cut. They believed and they taught that all who believe in God need this sign that God had given to Abraham, no exceptions. Yet after hearing Peter, Barnabas, Paul, and James, the church leaders accepted that this wasn’t necessary. Peter said, “‘God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.’”

If we look at Romans 2, verses 25 through 29, Paul is speaking there of circumcision as well. He makes clear that even for Jews, it’s not just about bearing the mark on your body. Verses 28 and 29, “A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God.”

The heart is what must be changed. Not the literal organ, but that which is understood to be our life, our existence. We must by changed at the very core of who we are and what comes from that. We must bear Christ in us. Yet we can’t perform or have performed a procedure that puts him like a pacemaker. There’s no OR where this can be done. There’s no operation that will give you a scar by which you can show others he’s been put in you. No, our faith and salvation are the merciful work of God on us and in us. Paul wrote to the Colossians, chapter 2 verses 11 and 12, “In [Christ] you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature…with the circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.”

This is the hope each of us who professes faith holds. We hope and trust God has done this work, and it’s especially the hope we hold today to be real, true, and lasting for Thomas and Owen. In my conversations with them we recognized that while they’ve made their public professions today, faith is something they already have. Today is not the beginning. So too, sin that has been in their lives, that they’ve repented of to this point, today doesn’t mean they get to enjoy un-tempted perfection as long they shall live. No, they’ll each continue having to be aware and fighting against the devil, sin, and all that tempts them in the world. But as they have confessed Christ, our hope is that with a genuine confession, they may trust that they have been raised with Christ, he is with them for all their days, and he will be with them also in the life to come.

What a blessed assurance that is! It didn’t require any cutting body parts for them. No matter how painful each of them may feel standing up and saying even eight words was, I don’t think it hurt them too much. Yet we must not forget the benefits of faith still involved great pain. What Jesus did on each of their behalf and on behalf of every believer, every chosen and loved son and daughter of God, it caused Jesus great agony—he’s seen the sin that’s been around the Fall, he hates every one of the sins we commit, and yet he bore the suffering and death on the cross to take our sin, our punishment, and gift us his righteousness and eternal life. He has done and continues to do everything that enables us to be redeemed.

So, brothers and sisters, our faith exists not in what we do for ourselves or our benefit. Our faith and salvation are truly, wholly, completely accomplished in the work of God, in Christ, revealed by the Holy Spirit. Hear again from Paul in Romans 4 to close us out this morning, picking up in verse 9, “…We have been saying that Abraham’s faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith…The promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham.”’ The promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed, because Christ for all of us. Amen.