Numbers 6:22-27; Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:15-21
Happy
New Year! But that’s not the name of the holiday on the front of this
morning’s bulletin, is it? There, it
says we’re celebrating the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus today.
Actually, there is no feast day on the Church calendar for New Year’s
Day. The Church’s new year is the first Sunday of Advent, in late
November or early December. So instead, on January 1, the Church
celebrates ... circumcision. The Feast
of the Holy Name used to be titled the Feast of the Circumcision – the day we
remember Jesus being circumcised, when he was eight days old. No wonder
that observance never really caught on as a secular holiday.... So, let’s talk about circumcision! That
will be fun.
Circumcision
is something most of us think about maybe once or twice in our lives, if we
have to decide whether to follow the cultural practice of having it done to our
newborn sons. It’s a practice that’s
been on the decline for years now because the physicians will tell you circumcision
is medically unnecessary. But of course, theologically, circumcision is a
rich symbol, marking a man’s membership as part of God’s people, the children
of Abraham – and if the man was part of that faith family, then so were his
wife and daughters and … other possessions….
God made a covenant with Abraham that his descendants would inherit the
land to which God had led him, as well as the blessing that came with being
God’s missionary presence to the world. As
today’s Old Testament reading puts it, God’s covenant community received not
just land but divine favor: The Lord promised
to bless them and keep them, and make his face to shine upon them, and be
gracious to them, and lift up the divine countenance upon them, and give them
what all humanity longs for, which is peace (Numbers 6:24-26). And not just peace in the sense of the
absence of conflict, but peace in the sense of God’s wholeness and wellness, the
peace of right relationship, the peace of God’s kingdom, the peace of shalom.
Circumcision was the mark of the people’s wholehearted commitment to the
God who offered that kind of peace. Of course, as our new year’s
resolutions remind us, it’s comparatively easy to make a commitment. The
challenge is sticking with it – in this case, sticking with the God of Israel when
the gods of the nations, and the idols of our lives, sing their siren song.
Well,
Mary and Joseph were devout Jews, so of course they brought their baby to
undergo this procedure on the appointed day, the eighth day of his life, as the
Law prescribed. Who knows how much they
thought about it, but I’m sure they wanted to ensure their son would be fully part
of this covenant community, that he would feel God’s blessing shining upon him. Plus, this boy’s divine vocation called for
it. If he’d come to “save his people
from their sins” (Matthew 1:21), he had to be part of those people in every
sense. So Jesus receives the mark of the covenant, the mark of belonging
to the people God would never abandon. He was one with those he’d come to
save.
That
vocation to save people – it’s right there in the baby’s name, Jesus, which
means, “he saves.” The name was given by God, but it wasn’t just this baby’s name. Jesus is a form
of the name Joshua, Israel’s great leader who took over for Moses as the people
stood at the edge of the Promised Land after 40 years of wandering in the
wilderness. Joshua was the one who finally
led the people across the Jordan River and into the land they’d been seeking,
into the reward promised to those who would keep God’s covenant faithfully.
You can see Joshua up there among our beautiful windows, near the middle
of the nave, all decked out as a military commander. Now, to our ears, Joshua’s
story in the Old Testament is a little problematic. He saved God’s people
by killing a lot of other people and occupying the land that had been theirs
for generations. That’s another sermon, one
that might wrestle with blessings that come to us at other people’s expense, as
well as our temptation to see blessing as a zero-sum game. But at the end
of the day, problematic though it may be, Joshua did save God’s people by
bringing them out of the wilderness and into the good land God had promised.
Jesus
does the same thing. He leads us out of
our wildernesses, guiding us in living faithfully according to the covenant we’ve
made and ushering us into the blessing that comes when God’s face truly shines
upon you. The difference between Jesus and the first Joshua is a matter
of both form and content. As I said, Joshua’s process for saving God’s
people was by dispossessing other people, something I have trouble seeing Jesus
affirming. But Jesus also differs from Joshua
in the terms of the covenant God offers through him. In the Old Covenant,
the promise was about life in the here and now – land and blessing for a chosen
people. In the New Covenant, the promise extends past this world – life
and blessing, now and always. Eternal life, in fact. It’s the same
gift, in a sense – God’s wholeness and wellness, God’s reign and rule and
beloved community. But with Jesus, the offer grows. With Jesus, God
expands the boundaries of blessing not just to the physical descendants of
Abraham but to humanity by offering adoption into God’s family for all. With
Jesus, God expands the boundaries of blessing to include not just God’s favor
in the life we know now but the light of God’s countenance shining upon us eternally.
“Whoever comes to me will never be hungry,” Jesus will grow up to say,
“and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). “I am resurrection and I am life,” he will
promise. Anyone who lives and believes in him will never die. (John
11:25-26) It’s the peace of shalom,
the peace of God’s beloved community – but both now and forever.
We’re
tempted sometimes, when we think about eternal life, to think it’s out there
somewhere, in the future. As children,
we’re taught (implicitly or explicitly) that if we’re good, we’ll find heaven; and
if not, hell’s waiting for us. And for many of us, that’s about as far as
we go in thinking about Jesus’ new covenant, that promise of eternal life for
those who believe. But, you know, that childhood
view is too small; and you don’t have to be a theologian to understand it a
little more fully. How many of us have known moments of heaven in this
life? And how many of us would say we’ve
spent time in hells of our own choosing? Well, as that good Anglican
William Shakespeare once observed, “What’s past is prologue.” The future
is not divorced from the present; instead, it’s foreshadowed by it.
Eternal life is a both/and – a promise for the future, but also a reality
right now. Jesus doesn’t just save us
later. He cares too much about the messy, real lives of the people he
loves. Jesus saves us now, if we’ll take him up on it. The kingdom of God is within you and among
you, Jesus says, right there for the taking. So the choices we make for God’s kingdom, or
against God’s kingdom – those choices have consequences both now and later. We can choose to live
as adopted children of God, as inheritors of the covenant of divine blessing,
as those beloved of the Father and blessed with peace – or, we can choose not to.
So
maybe this is a New Year’s Day sermon after all. I wonder, what would it
be like to resolve, in this new year, to see your whole life differently?
What if we resolved to find heaven within us and among us? What if
we resolved to seek out the Lord whose face shines upon us, and who’s gracious
to us, and who gives us peace? You know,
commentators, and my own children, have described the year now past as “the
dumpster fire that was 2016.” Fair enough; there was a lot not to like
about 2016, as there is every year. So
let’s take Jesus up on the opportunity for a new start. But don’t just
leave that offer at the low bar of resolving to lose weight, or drink less, or
go to the gym. Take Jesus up on the offer of the New Covenant. Resolve
to find and foster eternal life every day you’re blessed to wake up in
2017. For you, what needs to
go? What needs to grow? Whom do you need to love? Whom, or what, do you need to let go of? What debt needs forgiveness – for you and by
you? What does the peace of shalom look like for you? After all, it is your birthright. For
“God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts” because “you are no longer
a slave but [God’s] child, and if a child then also an heir” of heavenly life
(Galatians 4:6-7).
So,
in 2017, resolve to remember the moments when you gaze into heaven and know the peace of God’s kingdom. Resolve to choose the reality that stands in
contrast to the dumpster fires of our lives – how the Lord has made his face to
shine upon you, and been gracious to you, and given you glimpses of peace.
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