A sermon for the eight day of Christmas, 2023
After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
We are given
an identity long before we shape and refashion it by our own decisions
and habits.
We are born
at a particular time and space which we did not choose, with a body we did not
form.
We are born
into families or households which we did not choose, into a particular culture
that will shape us more than we will ever shape it.
Identity is
something all of us are given.
This is true
even in a culture like ours which puts so much emphasis on individual choice.
We may have
greater freedom to choose a career and lifestyle than previous generations.
We even have
a legal right to choose our gender – whatever it is that we mean by that.
But the fact
is that in all the decisions we make, we are still at best sculptors of our
identities,
sculptors
who work with the material given to them.
What is
given to us is like a massive granite block, already shaped by culture and
circumstances before we put our chisel to it.
We can work
with or against the grain of the material but not without it.
After
eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child.
Why?
Because
Jesus was born a Jew and Jewish males are circumcised on the eighth day, long
before they have any idea of what it might mean to be a boy or a girl, to be
Jewish or non-Jewish.
Being born a
Jew means, as the apostle Paul put it, being born under the law.
As the boy
grows up, there will be decisions to be made whether to live under the
law,
whether to
receive God’s law joyfully or to accept it grudgingly or to disregard it
altogether,
but the man
cannot undo the fact that as a boy he was born under the law.
…and he
was called Jesus.
Long before
we make a conscious decision about the name (and nowadays pronoun) to which we
will answer, others will have called us by a name not chosen by us.
For Jesus
the name encapsulated the mission entrusted to him: God-to-the-rescue,
God-saves.
Baby Jesus
was circumcised and was given the name Jesus without being asked what he
thought about it – just like we were all given a name soon after we were born
and were incorporated into a culture or subculture which we did not choose.
And yet it
was all very different for the Son of God.
Before the
first human children were born, God the Son had already volunteered to come to the rescue of
humanity.
Before the
first human children were born, God the Son had already decided to be born to
Mary and to be given the name of Jesus.
For many
generations God the Son had shaped the culture into which He was going
to be born.
Before
Abraham was, I am,
he once said.[1]
He was
behind the call of Abraham out of Ur in Chaldea.
He
determined and promised that in Abraham’s family all the earth should find
blessing.
He met Moses
in a fiery bush and called him to prefigure God’s great rescue operation.
He
accompanied the Israelites on their journey out of Egypt through the wilderness
to Mount Sinai.
While God’s
promise is for all peoples and nations, God’s law was given to shape a
particular nation.
Some of the
commandments, e.g. about circumcision but also about what could and could not
be eaten, were specifically given to separate between Jews as God’s covenant
people, and non-Jews.
Jesus was
born under the law, into a culture shaped by God’s law.
But he was
born also into a culture shaped by alienation from God and disobedience to His
will.
In fact,
Paul wrote earlier in this letter to the Galatians that the law was added
because of transgressions, namely to show us up as law-breakers and to put
us under condemnation.
Because the
law had been given to Israel, it was in Israel that sin was identified for what
it is.
This does
not mean that God’s people necessarily behaved worse than others.
But it was
worse for bad things to have been committed by those who had God’s law.
What’s more
Paul may be suggesting here that the Law, with the accumulation of sin, had itself
become a malignant force, from which oppressed people needed rescuing.
But God’s
law cannot undo God’s promise.
The law was
a temporary measure until the offspring would come through whom the
promise would be realised and who would form one people of God,
consisting of both Jews and non-Jews.[2]
By being
circumcised, Jesus received the mark of God’s covenant with Abraham, the seal
of God’s promise. – He came into our world to bring the fulfilment of this
promise for all nations.
By being
circumcised, Jesus was identified with his people, Israel. – But he came into
this world to break down the barrier between Jews and non-Jews.
This was
done in accordance with the law so that now, when the fullness of time had
come, the one born under the law would redeem those who were
under the law.
This may
sound a bit like someone being born in a collapsed building so that he could
rescue those who were trapped in this building.
In what
sense had the law become a trap for us from which we needed rescuing?
Probably in
more than one way.
God is one
and therefore God’s people should be one – from every tribe and language and
nation.
God’s
promise to Abraham implies as much but it also designates one family, one
nation as the special carrier of God’s blessing.
The law
given to Israel shaped Israel as a distinct nation. The trap was that the
distinctiveness and separation fed an ethnic pride which drove a wedge between
Jews and non-Jews.
The law also
makes known God’s character and so reveals to us how to live as those who were created
in the image of God, as those who bear God’s name.
But in
pointing the way the law did not actually give the strength to live in
God’s ways and even incited people to sin.
So we have
all become trapped.
All of us
who were created in the image of God but failed to live in God’s ways.
All of us
who were meant to be children of God but lived as slaves to other forces.
But when
the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under
the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might
receive adoption as children.
God-to-the-rescue,
God-saves.
Some people use New Year’s Eve as an opportunity to look back and take stock.
- What have I achieved?
- Where have I fallen short?
These can be
good questions to ask but above them all stands this:
He was
born to rescue those who were under the law.
The redeemed
are no longer under the law of reward and punishment,
no longer
under any law that measures worth in accomplishments,
no longer
under the law that condemns those who fall short of it.
We can be
relaxed and therefore address the question of our failure quite honestly.
This is one
aspect of our rescue: we can admit to have fallen short
and we can
do so without being condemned for it
because he
was born to rescue those who were under the law.
Some people,
as they enter a new year, make new Year’s resolutions
or choose a
word of the year as a motto, e.g., ‘persist’.
This can
also be a useful practice to help us sculpt our identity further.
But above
our plans and schemes let the name of Christ stand: Jesus,
God-to-the-rescue, God-saves.
Jesus has
rescued us from the slavery to sin and death, from the bondage to the elements
of this world, from being under the authority of the law
so that
we might receive adoption as children.
This is the
new identity he gives us: children of God.
By His
Spirit we can now cry out to God, ‘Abba! Father!’
We do not
read God’s law with the anxiety of those who will be punished if they do not
obey
but as
children who want to learn about their Father’s priorities and agendas.
He was born under the law so that we
would no longer be captive under the law.
He shed his blood, for the first time
at his circumcision, so that we would not need to pay for our sins with our own
blood.
His name is
Jesus, God-to-the-rescue, God-saves.
