The Circumcision of Christ, 2004
Text: St. Luke 2:15-21
The Rev. Jerry Kistler
“Jesus Does His Name”
“And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the child, His name was called Jesus.”
What a wonderful connection of events we see in our Gospel lesson this morning. There’s something very
deep and profound here that we’d very easily pass over if we weren’t prepared now to walk alongside of our
Lord, by means of the Church’s calendar, and to meditate upon how his entire life, from his lowly birth in the
stable at Bethlehem, to his ascension to the right hand of the majesty on High, saves us. On the eighth day of
his Incarnation, the Son of God submits to the ancient sacrament of circumcision, and he is given his Name,
the holy Name of JESUS.
But we might begin today by asking the simple question: What’s in a name? What does the naming of Jesus
have to do with our salvation? We all have names. Our parents struggled for months to give us just the right
one. They may have consulted one of those baby name books and searched through the meanings of all the
various names they liked before they chose one. And now we’re stuck with it for the rest of our lives. Some of
us like our names and some of us don’t. But the real question is, how many of us really live up to our names?
Let’s take the name “Brian,” for example (or perhaps better put, let’s make an example of “Brian”). The origin
of the name isn’t known for certain, but it’s probably related to the Old Celtic word for “hill,” bre, and thus by
extension the “Brian” means “high” or “noble,” or “he who ascends” – a pretty exalted title. So, Brian, in the
grand scheme of things, in terms of spiritual things, do you really live up to your name?
How about “Diane” or “Diana”? Your names are probably derived from an old Indo-European root meaning
“heavenly” or “divine.” Now no matter what your husbands might say in public, do you really live up to your
names?
How about “Timothy?” Tim your name means “one who honours God.” Do you fully live up to your name?
Justin, your name means “a just one.” Do you think you can, in and of yourself, live up to your name before
God, when the Scripture says that the just before God are those who do the Law? (Rom. 2:13)
Ethan, your name comes from the Hebrew word meaning “solid” or “enduring.” Sorry to say, buddy, but
nobody can live up to that name!
I hate to keep picking on the Larots, but you guys have such great names. Manuel, I know you know what
your name means – “God with us.” You better not think you can live up to your name!
Nicky, your name means “victory” or “conqueror.” Do you always have the victory in a spiritual sense?
Some of us have names that remind us that we can’t live up to our names or put our confidence in our selves.
Ian and Jeanne, your names both come from the Hebrew name meaning “God is gracious.” You have to trust
in God’s grace
Danielle, you name reminds you that by nature you’re under the curse – “God is my judge.” “Jerry” – my name
teaches me that because I’m so low in my own sin and lack of strength, if I’m ever going to be lifted up it will
be all God’s doing – “Yahweh has exalted.”
See, none of us in the end lives up to our names. What’s in a name? There’s a lot in a name. Our names tell us
who we ought to be, what we ought to do. But all of us fall short the glory that we bear in our own names. But
the glory of this day, this day in which we celebrate the circumcision and the naming of Jesus, is that Jesus
does live up to His name. Jesus does His Name, and He does it for us who fall short of our names. For the holy
Name of “Jesus” means “God saves.”
See, in Hebrew culture people did their names. That’s why so often in the Old Testament, and even in the
New, God names his people. As we heard this morning, God changed his name from Abram, “exalted father,”
to Abraham, “father of a multitude,” because God would cause him to be the father of many nations, and that
in him, that is in his seed, all the families of the earth would receive the divine blessing – salvation, justification,
the forgiveness of sins. Christ gives Simon the new name Peter, “the rock,” because he, as the one who stood
for all the apostles, would be the foundation of the church through his witness to Christ.
So it is that when Christ himself, the eternal Son of God, was to be born into the world, God his Father
announced beforehand, through the angel Gabriel, that his name was to be Jesus, “for he will save his people
from their sins.”
We say “Jesus,” but his real name was Y’shua – Joshua. It was a common Jewish name. It bore no lofty or
royal significance like Herod or Caesar. But it was still a very important name in Jewish history.
The most famous Joshua was, of course, the Joshua who led God’s people through the Jordan River to take
possession of the Promised Land. God instructed his people to put their faith in Joshua to lead them to victory
over their wicked enemies, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, , the Perizzites, the Hivites and the
Jebusites, and to give them their inheritance in the land. But even though it was the man Joshua that they were
to follow, God said that it was He Himself that would give them the victory. God himself would save them
from their greater, more powerful and numerous enemies and give them their land. So long as they trusted in
Him, Joshua would give them rest in the land. Rest from their enemies. Rest from war. Rest to enjoy the good
fruits of their inheritance.
But did Joshua give them that rest? Did Joshua give them rest from their true enemies? What were their truest
enemies? Were they the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites? No.
Their truest enemies were their own sins and wickedness which cause them to continually turn away from
God and to make them liable to the curse: “Cursed is everyone that does not continue to do all things written in
the book of the Law.” That was the curse that was sealed in their own flesh on the first day they came into the
land. Do you remember the story?
When Joshua first lead the people across the Jordan, none of the men had been circumcised. Every one of the
first generation of people who came out of Egypt died in the wilderness, and for some reason none of the men
born in the wilderness were in the meantime circumcised. So the very first thing Joshua did when he brought
the people across into the promised land was to circumcise every male, and in that way to seal them in the
covenant. That was to seal them under the burden and weight of the law and its curse. Cursed would they be if
they did not from that day forward keep every commandment of the law perfectly. And the curse was
dramatically- and painfully - signified in the cutting off of the foreskin. To experience the curse was to be cut-
off. Cut off from God’s people. Cut off from the promises. Cut off from the land of the living. Cut off,
ultimately, from God. God forewarned the people saying, “If you do not keep faith with me, if you do not
entirely cut-off those wicked nations from the land, I will do to you as I thought to do to them.”
The first Y’shua couldn’t ultimately do his name for his people, because he couldn’t save them from the
greatest enemy – the curse of the law. As a mere man it was, in a sense, too much of a name for him to bear.
But he bore it to foreshadow the time when God himself would take that name Y’shua and perfectly do that
name for his people. “For in the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law
to redeem those under the law.” And they called his name Jesus.
Jesus Christ is the Greater Joshua who gives us rest from the curse, by becoming the curse for us, says St.
Paul.
It is precisely at the moment of his circumcision that he is given the holy name of Jesus, because his
circumcision is the pledge for how he will save his people from their sins: by being made a curse for us, by
being cut off at the cross. Cut off from the living. Cut off from the fellowship he had with his Father from
eternity past. That’s why we can say that his circumcision saves us. It was his pledge to go to the cross. As
someone has put it, even when he was only eight days old, his Father was already giving him work to do.
At the cross, Jesus fulfilled the rite of circumcision for all time. The curse it symbolized was fully realized in
him. That’s why circumcision is no longer a requirement for Christians – because we have had our
circumcision in Christ. We’ve had our circumcision in our baptisms. “In Him you were also circumcised with
the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of
Christ, buried with Him in baptism…” (Col. 2:11,12)
In baptism we died with Christ, died to the curse, died to the power of sin, and we rose up again in the power
of His new life. “Baptism now saves us,” says St. Peter, “not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the
answer of a good conscience toward God, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
Jesus does His Name for us – He saves us from our sins by his circumcision, by his pledge to go to the cross
where the curse of circumcision was fully realized. And therefore, even though His Name Y’shua was a
common name, now God has highly exalted Him and given Him the Name that is above every name, that at the
Name of Jesus every knew should bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God
the Father. And in Him, beloved, in the holy Name of Jesus, the Bible says we have all been given new names.
In a sense, our old names have been transfigured and lifted up in Jesus Christ. Justin, you are just before God
in Jesus. Ethan, you will endure unto everlasting life through Christ. Brian, you shall ascend to the Father in and
through the One who has ascended before you. For, Danielle, God is your judge, and he has judged you
righteous in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Diane and Diana, you are heavenly, in the sense that you are
already, even now, seated with Christ in the heavenly places. Stephen, you have been crowned with the crown
of Life. Robert, you will have “bright fame” before God in the Glory of the Lord. Nicky, you will have the
eternal victory, through Him who has conquered sin and death.
You see, folks? Jesus does his Name for us, in His Name our names are made new. Glory be to Jesus! +