“In His Father’s Things”
Luke 2:40-52
12/31/08
Tonight’s sermon is rated PG-13. Most of
you probably think we are here tonight because it’s New
Year’s Eve. You’re probably expecting a sermon that
not only touches on all the blessings that God has granted us this past
year, but also looks forward to the blessings He’ll grant us by
His grace in the next. And while this wouldn’t be a bad way
to bring in the new year, the actual holiday that the Church is given
to celebrate today is the Circumcision of our Lord.
But now you’re probably thinking,
“Circumcision! Why do we need to talk about
that?” It’s not the sort of topic you’d
normally bring up in polite conversation. If it’s discussed
at all, it’s usually in a medical context. And yet,
it’s a procedure that almost every male child in both western and
middle-eastern countries undergoes just days after his birth.
Where does the practice come from? Why was it given?
What’s the significance of Jesus’ circumcision, and why is
this important for us? These are the questions that we’ll
be addressing tonight.
First, where does the practice come from?
According to the Scriptures, God gave circumcision to Abraham and his
descendants as a sign of His testament to them. This testament
included God’s promises that He would bless and multiply
Abraham’s descendants greatly, that He would be their God and
they His people, and that He would give them the land of Canaan as an
everlasting possession. But most of all, God’s testament to
Abraham included the promise that in him, through the promised Savior
that would come from him, all the nations of the earth would be
blessed. Upon hearing these promises given to him by God, Abraham
believed God, and God declared Abraham righteous. God then gave
Abraham and his descendants the physical sign of circumcision, a sign
that was permanently engraved into their bodies, in order to remind
them of God’s testament and promises to them.
This, then, is one of the reason’s why
circumcision was given. But you might ask, “But why did it
have to be this kind of sign? Why did God choose this particular
member of a male’s anatomy upon which to imprint this
sign?” Here again we have to go back to God’s promise
to Abraham that in him all the nations of the earth would be
blessed. This was a reference to a very specific individual who
would descend from Abraham. He was the Seed promised by God to
Adam and Eve in the beginning, who would crush the serpent’s
head. It was Jesus Christ. Through Him all the nations of
the earth are blessed, as they hear the Gospel, confess their sins, and
trust in Him for their salvation. Circumcision pointed to Him,
because it was from Abraham’s loins that this Savior would
come. It was a physical reminder to the Jews imprinted in their
bodies that from them God would send His Son into the world, in order
to save His people from their sins.
And this is another reason why circumcision was
given: it not only reminded the people of God’s promises
and their coming Savior, but it also reminded them of why they needed a
Savior, and that was because of sin. Whenever the Scriptures talk
about the source of original sin (that is, the sinful condition with
which we all come into this world), it always attributes this to Adam,
not Eve (even though it was Eve who sinned first). According to
the Apostle Paul, sin and death came into the world through this one
man, and from him that sin and death have been passed on to all of us,
his descendants. This seems to suggest that we receive our sinful
nature from our fathers, so that anyone who has a human father is born
a sinner. (By the way, if we were ever able to clone people, they
would be sinners too by virtue of the fact that their original cells
would be taken from sinful donors; they would just be a copy of the
sinner from whom they were cloned.) But the idea that sin is
passed on from the male seems to be confirmed by the book of Genesis,
when we read that Adam, who because of his sin lost the image of God in
which he was created, then begot a son not in God’s image, but in
his own image, that being the image of a sinner. And so,
circumcision, performed on the male’s instrument of procreation,
was a reminder to the people of both their sin and their need for a
Savior, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God - and
this not only because we are sinners by nature, but also because we
have actively rebelled against God’s Law.
And this leads us to a third reason for the giving
of circumcision: Circumcision obligated the Jews to keep
God’s Law. It reminded them that God had set them apart
from the other peoples of the world to be His own possession.
Thus, they were to be a holy people. Declared righteous by God
just as Abraham had been through faith in His promises, they were now
to live as His people by keeping His Word and obeying His
commandments. Among other things they were to avoid eating
certain foods, they were to abstain from work on the Sabbath, they were
not to marry those who weren’t circumcised, they were to wear
certain clothes, perform certain rites (such as sacrifices), and
observe certain holidays and feasts. But above all they were to
do justice and love mercy, fearing, loving, and trusting God above all
things and loving their neighbors as themselves. As time went on,
however, the people of God proved themselves to be sinners just like
everyone else, as they too could not keep God’s commandments nor
live like the holy people of God that God had set them apart to
be. They forgot their circumcision, even though they still
practiced the rite, and fell away into unbelief. At one time in
their history God declared that they had become even worse in their
sinful behavior than the nations which He had driven out before them,
to the point where they were sacrificing their children to an idol
called Molech. This shows that is it not the mere doing of the
rite that saves, but faith which clings to God’s promises
attached to the sign that does.
Circumcision, then, turned into a sign that
convicted the people of sin. Had they remembered why God had
given them the sign of circumcision in the first place, they would have
repented of their sins and their failure to live as the holy children
of God, and then trusted in His promise of a Savior to come, who was to
shed His blood in order to atone for their sins, previewed for them in
their animal sacrifices.
This, then, takes us to the circumcision of Jesus
and this evening’s Gospel text. The text doesn’t
mention Christ’s circumcision; however, Jesus does say something
that ties in with what we’re talking about. The setting is
the temple in Jerusalem. The 12 year old Jesus had decided to
stay behind, taking an opportunity to teach the teachers, while Joseph
and Mary left for home, but they were unaware of it. After
finding Him in the temple they rebuked Him for not telling them where
He was. But He said, “Why were you looking for me?
Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s
house?” That’s how our translation reads, but the
literal wording in Greek reads, “Did you not know that I must be
in my Father’s things?” One of those
“things” was, yes, the temple, where God’s Word was
proclaimed and where atonement was made for sin through the animal
sacrifices. Jesus had to be there, because He was God’s
Word in the flesh, the One to whom all the Scriptures pointed, and He
was going to atone for the sin of the world once for all with His blood
shed on the cross. But among the things of the Father in which
Jesus had to be also included circumcision. It was, in fact,
among the very first of His Father’s things that Jesus had to be
in, as He was only eight days old when it occurred.
But why did He have to be in this particular
thing? Jesus was no sinner, as He had no human father, but was
the Son of God. He was in no need of a sign that referred to a
Savior to come; He Himself was that Savior. What was the
significance, then, of His circumcision? The Apostle Paul helps
us out in the book of Galatians where he writes, “But when the
fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman,
born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we
might receive adoption as sons.” It was at His circumcision
that the Law was laid upon Jesus to do, just as it had been laid upon
every Jewish child to do. But where everyone else failed, Jesus
succeeded, in order to free us, who were slaves under the Law and its
condemnation on account of our sin. This son of Adam fulfilled
the Law in our place and died on the cross for our sins, so that the
blessings that were promised to Abraham and sealed with the sign of
circumcision might come to us who believe as Abraham believed.
Not only did Jesus begin to keep the Law at His
circumcision, in order to redeem us who were under the Law, but this
was also the first time His blood was spilled for us. It would be
spilled again for us on the cross, and it’s this blood that
cleanses us from all sin as it’s applied to us at our
Baptism. Baptism is our circumcision as Christians today.
It is by way of our Baptism that Paul says, “In [Jesus] you also
were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off
the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been
buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him
through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the
dead.” Baptism is the sign that God has given to us to
remind us of the fact that through it Jesus has washed away our sins
with His blood and that we are His holy people, set apart to be His
very own, purchased at the cost of His Son, crucified and risen from
the dead for our salvation.
Jesus’ circumcision for us means that He has
delivered us from our bondage to the Law, having fulfilled it Himself,
and that His blood was shed to atone for our sins. But it is also
when Jesus was circumcised that has significance for us as well.
God commanded that circumcision be performed on the eighth day after a
boy’s birth. What did this teach? The number 8 in the
Scripture represents the resurrection, the new creation, and the future
life. Circumcision, then, was a sign and guarantee of these
things to come. But Jesus is the One who ushers in this new
creation. He is not only circumcised on the eighth day but He is
risen from the dead on the eighth day, not just the first day of
another ordinary week, but the first day of a new age. And you
and I who are baptized into Christ are new creations ourselves in Him,
with the hope of the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting
to look forward to.
The Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord, then,
celebrates the first of the Father’s things our Lord had to be in
in order to achieve our salvation. As bloody, messy,
embarrassing, and uncomfortable as it is to talk about, it was
necessary for your Lord to do for you. But that’s what our
sin gets Him. It not only got Him to spill His blood at His
circumcision, but to spill His blood at the cross, in order that with
that blood you might be released from your slavery under the Law, be
cleansed from all sin, and be set apart as God’s holy people with
the promise of the resurrection of your bodies and the life of the
world to come. May our Lord’s circumcision and all the
things He has done for you bring you joy and peace throughout the new
year. Amen.