Romans 4:8-14 * Luke 2:15-21
Back
in the 1970s, when I was in my first year in college, I had a run-in with a
Philosophy instructor. The older I get, the more I read and the more I learn,
the more I know how right I was, and how wrong the instructor was. Now, that is
not the normal reflection one makes of his first year of college, and not the
normal reflection I make of my undergraduate days in the 1970s when I was a
mere boy and a beardless youth (a time my own kids think could not have
existed. When I tell them I was once their age, I am not sure they believe me).
Anyway,
this Instructor told the class that the ancient Greeks had believed that matter
was evil (so far she was somewhat right), and that, in her words, “we see this
as part of Christian teaching, that matter is evil.” I did not hesitate to
contradict her. I spoke right up: “That is not Christian teaching,” I said. And
I was right. She said to me, “Defend that statement.” So, I did. I pointed out
that as early as the Book of Genesis, God looks at His creation and says, “It
is very good.” I mentioned the sacraments, specifically bringing up baptism and
the Lord’s Supper, which use matter for what is holy. I was about to point out
the most important part, that Christians believe that God Himself has appeared
in the world of matter in what we call the Incarnation, the Christian teaching
that God the Son is fully God and fully man in one Person. But, she cut me off,
and repeated her assertion that Christians have always believed that matter is
evil.
The
entire concept of matter being evil was the worst of ancient Gnostic heresies
taught by one Marcion, whom the bishop and martyr Saint Polycarp called “the
firstborn of Satan.” I am sure that these names were not familiar to the
instructor. To this day I am irked by the fact that standards at that college
were so low as to make an instructor out of someone so totally unqualified. And
yet, if that unfortunate person had not been presenting herself as someone who
is educated, we could have a certain amount of sympathy.
After
five centuries of division and confusion among Christians, it is all too true
that the heart of the message is missing from what most people think we
believe. During this season of Christmas, and particularly this eighth day of
Christmas, the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, it is a good time to state
some basics about our faith. In particular, what does it mean that God the Son
was born into the world as a human being? And, what does it mean about the use
of matter in sacraments and also for worship in general? It is right that we
can see water, incense, the sound of bells and other created things as useful
in worship. Our God made a good world, and created things have been sanctified
by Christ taking human nature and coming into the world of matter, of space and
of time. Eternity and time have met in one Person. For people who object to
water, to incense, to bells and to the Real Presence in the Sacrament, I can
only ask what they have against Jesus Christ having come in the flesh.
The
fact that we believe such a thing, that we believe “the Word was made flesh,”
is rather startling, quite a shock when we really take it in for the first time.
I recall vividly when I was very young, attending a Midnight Mass on Christmas
Eve in the 1970s, and the Rector of Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church, a small
country church in Maryland
The
very fact that Saint Luke tells us that he was circumcised takes on great
significance. Every Jewish boy was circumcised on the eighth day. This is what
God had commanded Abraham. But, what does it mean that Jesus Christ was
circumcised? What does it tell us about creation and redemption, and God’s love
for the human race?
Well,
to begin with, as our Collect points out, Jesus Christ would fulfill the Law.
For redemption, it reminds us of words from the Epistle to the Hebrews: “For we
have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our
infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15).” The fact that He fulfilled
the Law perfectly, and was Himself without sin is essential to our salvation;
the Righteous One being sacrificed as a Lamb without spot, himself pure from
all sin, “Who his own self bare our sins in
his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto
righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed (I Pet. 2: 24).” As Isaiah put it,
in the 53rd chapter:
“Surely
he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our
peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have
turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of
us all.”
The sinless One, like Adam whose sin
made the many guilty, has by His obedience unto death as the atoning sacrifice,
made the many righteous. In this first shedding of blood by circumcision He
begins to obey and to fulfill the whole Law; no one else ever did it perfectly.
No one else could. No man in heaven or earth was worthy to open the scroll,
says the Book of Revelation, except for the One who was like a Lamb that had
been slain, and is called the Lion of the Tribe of Judah.
What else does His circumcision tell us? It tells us that we can identify Him as an individual in history. This is
very important, indeed essential, to believing that His Incarnation was real
and not allegorical. Back in the 1980s, in New York City
God is the great Reality, and
we human beings are the image. Jesus Christ in His human nature is the exact
image, the express icon of the Father. His Circumcision reminds us of
this reality: namely, that He entered real human history. That is, the world,
as it really is, received into its created existence the Lord Himself. He was
real, and as an individual had marks that made Him of the male sex and of
Jewish ethnicity, just as we all have these same distinctions of belonging to
one of the two sexes, and to our own specific lineage from our ancestors. His
sex was male, His people were Jewish.
It is important that He was male. This
is no “accident” of the Incarnation, but rather, part of the plan. It is
important that He was Jewish, descended from the Royal line of David. This too
was no mere “accident” of the Incarnation, but an essential part of the plan of
His Incarnation. Only a man could be our High Priest and represent all of
humanity in One Person- as head. Only a Jew from the line of David could be the
eternal King whose government and peace will have no end. 1
And, all of this ties into that other
fact of His Circumcision, His name. “And when eight days were accomplished for
the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of
the angel before he was conceived in the womb.” Jesus, Y’Shua, is a
Hebrew name that means Salvation. As it says in the book of Isaiah:
Ci’ Adonai Shof’tenu
Adonai Mak’ka’kenu
Adonai Malkenu
Hu Yashi-enu
“For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is
our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; He is our salvation (Isaiah 33:22).”
We
ought to study the two comings of Jesus Christ as they are revealed in the Old
Testament: His first coming as Priest and His second when He will come
as King. For today, let us consider the meaning of His circumcision, the first
shedding of His blood, and His particular history as a male of the house of
David, of the tribe of Judah
He
has redeemed us by means of the good world He created, in a body of flesh and
bones, in time and space. His Name is Jesus. He is our salvation.
1.
Isaiah 9:6,7. These two verses reveal that Messiah must be a male of David’s
line.
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