The Savior was circumcised for our salvation

Sermon for the Circumcision & Naming of Our Lord

Galatians 3:23-29  +  Luke 2:21

Let’s take a moment, on this first day of 2025, to praise the Lord for preserving us through the past year, for 366 days of daily bread for each and every one of us (and, in many cases, far, far more than daily bread), for sustaining His ministry of Word and Sacraments among us, for mercifully forgiving us our sins and putting up with our fears and doubts, for the good works He has worked in and among us, for protecting us in our great weakness against the devil, the world, and our flesh, for ruling and leading us in His ways, for raising us up again when we stumbled, and for comforting us under the cross and in temptation. And let’s call upon Him, each one from his own heart, to graciously preserve us throughout the coming year, that we may finish this year with a stronger faith, a better knowledge of His Word, and a firmer commitment to living each day according to His commandments than we have as we begin the new year today.

There are two events that we celebrate on this 8^th day of Christmas, both of which are recorded in our one-verse Gospel: the naming of Jesus, and His circumcision, both of which took place on the 8^th day of His birth.

It’s easy to see the significance in the naming of Jesus. As the baby’s legal father, Joseph gave his Son the name that the angel had told him to give to Mary’s Son, just as the angel had told Mary what to call her Son: You shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins. The Hebrew name Yeshua means, “He saves.” People often fall into all kinds of trouble from which they need saving, and people often mistakenly look to Jesus to save them from earthly troubles or from earthly injustice. But the angel was specific: He will save His people from their sins. Now, to save people from sins means, first, to reconcile them to God, to secure for them the forgiveness of their sins, to rescue them out of Satan’s kingdom and to bring them into the kingdom of God. How would Jesus do that? First, by living and dying in the place of sinners, to earn the gift of forgiveness for all. Then, by sending His Holy Spirit and bringing sinners to faith in Him as our Savior. And finally, on the Last Day, He will save His people from all the consequences of their sins, perfecting His work of salvation forever. Believing in Jesus, and being baptized in Jesus’ name, is what makes a person “His people.” And so, true to His name, Jesus will save His people from their sins. Jesus, and Jesus alone. For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

The other event of the 8^th day was Jesus’ circumcision. You’ll recall that this practice among the Jews went back to the time of Abraham, some 2,000 years before Jesus was born. In Genesis 17, we find God’s institution of this Sacrament for Abraham and His offspring. God said to Abraham, I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your seed after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your seed after you…This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised; and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations.

So. Circumcision was the sign of the covenant God made with Abraham to be his God, to treat Abraham’s offspring as His very own sons and daughters, to care for them, protect them, and to give them the land of Canaan. It later became part of the Law of Moses, so that any male who wanted to be counted among the people of Israel and to participate in the worship of Israel had to be circumcised. A male Israelite who refused to be circumcised, or the Israelite parents who refused to circumcise their son, would be guilty of sinning against God.

So Mary and Joseph fulfilled the Law for their Son. They did what God required of them, shedding just a little bit of their newborn’s blood in order to bring Him under the Law of Moses, that He might inherit all the promises God had made to Abraham and His offspring. But if this child was truly “Jesus,” the promised Savior, then His circumcision meant much more than that. He wasn’t just any offspring of Abraham, like all the other circumcised men of Israel. He was THE offspring of Abraham, the true Heir of the Covenant, born to bring His people into a new and better Covenant, the New Testament in His blood.

That’s what Paul says about Jesus in Galatians 3, in the verses right before the text you already heard this evening: Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ…Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made…The Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

As you heard in the First Lesson, that means that the Law of Moses is finished. The Jews were under the Law of Moses as little children are under a guardian while they’re little. Once children become adults, they’re no longer under a guardian. In the same way, Paul says, now that Christ has come, those who believe in Him have “grown up” and are no longer under the guardianship of the Old Testament law. That covenant or Testament has been replaced by the New Testament in the blood of Christ.

The meal of the New Testament is the Lord’s Supper. But the sign of the New Testament, our entry into the New Testament, is Holy Baptism. As Paul said in tonight’s reading, For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.

This connection between Old Testament circumcision and New Testament Baptism is also mentioned by Paul in his epistle to the Colossians, where he writes to the uncircumcised Gentile Christians: In Christ you, too, 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. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

But all of this, including the forgiveness of our sins, including our status as sons and daughters of God, was only possible because Jesus, the Son of Mary, the Son of God, was circumcised as part of God’s plan of redemption. So Merry Christmas to all the baptized children of God! Because the circumcision of our Lord, on the 8^th day of Christmas, is what gives validity to your circumcision made without hands, when you were baptized into the name of the One who received His own saving name on this very same day, the Savior named Jesus, at whose name all in heaven and earth must bow. Amen.