"On the eighth day of Christmas, your true love gave Himself to you" — Circumcision and Name 2024

01. January 2025

Circumcision and the Name of Jesus

Numbers 6:22-27; Galatians 3:23-29; Luke 2:21

And at the end of eight days, when [Jesus] was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb (Luke 2:21).

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Today, we stand at the transition between a year gone and a year to come. Something about 2025 seems significant. We’re closer to 2050 than we are to 2000. (How’s that for making one feel old?) And as we grow older, the differences from one year to the next seem insignificant. What’s another year, month, week, or day?

The Psalmist implores the Lord, “Teach us to number our days so that we may get a heart of wisdom.” That’s why these transitions matter. We’re learning to value each day as a gift of God, every breath we take and move we make under Christ’s providential hand. “This is the day the LORD has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” We receive each day, month, year, decade, century, and millennium as a gift from the Giver God to be used according to His will and purpose.

“That we may get a heart of wisdom.” True wisdom is found in Jesus’ Word. That’s what each day we read, learn, mark, and inwardly digest the Holy Word so that we live, move, breathe, and have our being in Christ. His forgiveness creates new, clean hearts whose lifeblood is wisdom, the Wisdom of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Even the sunrise is a transition that marks a new day, to turn over a new leaf, and to rise to new life.

We inherently know other transitions, not just of time but space. You know and feel the difference when you walk through the front door into your home, especially if your spouse, children, or the menagerie of pets greet you. And if there is no greeting and the home is empty, it is still a space that is yours, set apart, and safe.

You probably notice the same as you cross the threshold into the parking lot into the narthex, from the narthex into the nave, and from the nave into the chancel. The Divine Service has its movement and motions, all a confession of the truth of our being brought from death to life, out of the old and into the new. C.S. Lewis described our ascent into heaven out of the old world in his final Narnia book, “The Last Battle.”

It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then he cried: “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that is sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!”

Today, we remember the infant Jesus being carried across a threshold and opening a new way for us. On the eighth day of Christmas, Jesus was circumcised. I know it seems an odd way to celebrate Christmas and the New Year. It probably makes the men squeamish. And it should. Think of the pain, blood, and babies screaming. Or in the case of Abraham and his host on the day it was instituted in Genesis 17. Every male, even a ninety-nine-year-old Abraham, has his flesh cut! Under the old covenant, God gave circumcision as the mark of His promise.

Now, after eight days, the promise given to Abraham has come. Jesus, your savior, is born! Jesus is Israel, the Promise, the Covenant, and the Offspring. The land of Canaan is heaven, His kingdom, His everlasting possession. He is our God, appearing in the flesh. He is the Law, the Law-giver, and the law-fulfiller. He submits Himself to the law of circumcision to show Himself as the offspring promised to Abraham and his seed forever.

Jesus crosses over the threshold and makes a new way for us. In Him, the condemnation of the Law has ended. Your sin is forgiven, and death’s chains are broken. Jesus has done what your fleshy attempts at obedience to the Law could do. He came in the likeness of your sinful flesh; He died for sin in the flesh. He fulfilled the Law for you, beginning with circumcision, resisting your temptations, suffering all your weaknesses, and even dying your death for you.

You were captive to the Law, imprisoned by sin and death. Now Jesus has come, and with Him comes faith in the new promise. He opens the door to a new life and a new world. His flesh and blood justify you. You are in Christ Jesus—saved from your sins by Jesus. And He gives you His Spirit, who guides you in all your ways, not under fear or obligation of the Law, but acting in love for your neighbor and your gracious giver, God.

What began on His eighth day culminates in your eighth day, the day of your baptism, the day of your resurrection! You are sons and daughters of the King through the new circumcision of the heart, that is, faith. As St. Paul writes, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6). You have received this more excellent mark than circumcision, the giving you the new name, Christian. You are marked by Holy Baptism, wholly covered by Christ’s flesh.

Jesus is the promised seed of Eve, Abraham, Jacob, and David. He is also the promised nation of Israel. All Israel will be joined again as a holy nation, the holy Christian church in His flesh. Jesus is the everlasting covenant given to Abraham and his offspring forever. The land of Canaan, flowing with milk and honey, is the promised land. Thy kingdom come! Heaven is here on earth in the holy Church and there into eternity with saints and angels.

What began on the eighth day is finished on the great and awesome day, Good Friday. On that day, Jesus completed the work He started on this day: he died the death your sins deserve, swallowed up the pall of death, and broke the bars of hell forever. The fruits of Christ’s suffering and death, the fruits of His cross, are given to you here!

On the eighth day of Christmas, your true love gave Himself to you. Jesus began His work of fulfilling, completing, and ending the old covenant for you. With drops of blood, He begins His work of shedding His blood for you. With the sacrifice of a tiny bit of flesh, He begins the work of giving His body for you. He has completed the old and has brought in the new and better covenant. He has brought you out of death and into life, out of this world of sin and into heaven. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

This is the Word of the Lord that came to me, so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His + Name. AMEN.

Rev. Christopher R. Gillespie
St. John Ev. Lutheran Church & School - Sherman Center
Random Lake, Wisconsin