2022 starts with Brismas

If you are a new school Anglican or Episcopalian, you probably know today as The Holy Name of Jesus, and so it is. As someone who has had a devotion to the name of Jesus for as long as I can remember, I heartily approve of this way of celebrating the 8th day of Christmas. However, something may be lost by sweeping the foreskin under the rug. First of all, circumcision of the phallus is one of the keys to understanding the holy scriptures, which are our witnesses to Christ. This is especially true of his scriptures, and the scriptures of the first Christians in particular -- that which we have come to call the Old Testament. After God made his promise to Abram (which created his people and initiated his economy of salvation), but before he began to fulfill it with the birth of Isaac, God gave him the new name Abraham, along with the sign of the covenant between God and his people: circumcision. Remember, the promise is for "you and your seed" as God repeatedly says. Our modern Bible translations are as embarrassed by the mention of semen as our modern liturgists are by phalluses and their foreskins. But from the day Abraham was circumcised, every time he (and his wife Sarah also) had any business with his seed-dispenser, he saw the difference -- the sign of God's covenant.

Here's something else we need to know. In English, we are used to hearing "make" or "establish" a covenant. (These are the legal agreements witnessed by God and thus binding, which in the ancient world included treaties between nations, constitutions between sovereigns and subjects, and business partnerships between people). This is not the verb in Hebrew. In Hebrew, the Bible says "God cut a covenant." The sign of the covenant is cut into the seed dispenser, because the promise of the covenant is to Abraham and his seed for ever.

And so, on the eight day (in accordance with God's Torah), Mary and Joseph have her baby circumcised and they give him the name given by the angel of the Lord: "Yah saves." Joshua, or Jesus has it has come to us in English from the Greek.

Spiritual significance was seen throughout the Old Testament in the sign of the covenant. If the people's hearts became unfeeling and insensitive towards God, then the prophets would note the ineffectiveness of physical circumcision alone: "Circumcise your hearts!" they would cry. When Jesus introduces a sign for the new covenant (appropriating the Jewish bath of purification that was needed by converts and that John preached for repentance), he gave us the sign of baptism. As other peoples came to be added to God's people, Jesus' apostles eventually determined that physical circumcision was not necessary for them to be added. However, spiritual circumcision ("of the heart") and the attendant bath were deemed necessary and salvific.

A parting caution: in recent years, we have witnessed rising opposition to physical circumcision. Let us be careful that this is not fueled by anti-Semitism. The Church must ever be on guard against continuing this sin against the Israel of God. Suggestions that the sign of the covenant is to be taken away by humans are unacceptable.

In this new year, let us continue to circumcise our hearts, that, as the 1662 collect says, we may cut away "all worldly and carnal lusts," and "in all things obey [God's] blessed will." Amen.