The Circumcision of Christ.
[January 1.]
The Collect.
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LMIGHTY God, who madest thy blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the law for man; Grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit; that, our hearts, and all our members, being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed will; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Today we recall the circumcision of Jesus in accordance with Jewish tradition, eight days (according to the Semitic and southern European calculation of intervals of days) after his birth, the occasion on which the child was formally given his name. The circumcision of Jesus has traditionally been seen, as explained in the popular 14th century work The Golden Legend, as the first time the blood of Christ was shed, and thus the beginning of the process of the redemption of man, and a demonstration Christ was fully human and of his obedience to Biblical law[1]. No longer celebrated by many churches, including the Roman and TEC, it is still the Eighth Day. That has not changed and so we celebrate the event as it is referred to in scripture, thus should it be recalled.
Our Lord and Savior is God, yet He is under The Law. How can this be one might ask? If He is God could He just choose not to obey His Own Laws if He so desires? Not all those 613 laws were those called Moral, that is to say the Ten Commandments, but there are those which are moral and there are also laws of God or physics. To answer the question posed earlier, God, the Ultimate Being, is subject to the laws He made.
While He can, and does on the very special occasion, disregard them such as when the shadow went backwards, for the most part He, too, is subject to The Laws[2]. Why? Because they were made for the general good of this world. They establish the moral code we are to follow if we are to be good citizens of His Kingdom. We see what happens when people do not follow the Laws God set out for us to live by.
If we stop living by The Laws, then we are no better than the animals of this world, who live by no such Laws whatsoever. Then, there is no benefit, no reason, for us to follow Christ if we do not live by the laws He has set before us. That is the whole reason to have the Laws, to rein in our evil desires and make us a holy and wholesome people. Without the Laws, we would be not wholesome and vicious and vile individuals. You can see what would happen as you see the forces of Evil attempting to destroy and discredit Christianity all across the globe. The results of their infiltration in various governments are resulting in less people following the Law and thus less people being wholesome and good and instead being encouraged to pursue their own desires at the cost of their soul and eternal life.
If we think do not need to follow these laws, then how could we claim to be following Him? We follow Him because He is the embodiment of all that is good and pleasing, unlike the world, which seems to be the embodiment of pure evil and sickness. They are revolted by God because as they are born of the darkness and not having accepted His Son and His Grace, they cannot bear to look upon the brightness of God. Moses not being able to look upon God without a veil was also an allegory to this simple fact. If we remain in the darkness, we cannot bear to look upon Him, the Living Light. So, we need to let the Holy Ghost enter into our hearts.
[1] The act of circumcision is often used in Scripture as an allegory for The Law, that is the system of the 613 laws referred to as Mosaic Laws under which Jews operated since the time of Moses.
[2] Yet, do not misapprehend, we know but little of His Laws and the laws of the universe as He made them. Our grasp of the space time continuum is little beyond that possessed by those at Moses time. He is, was and always will be. We live in the present, remember the past and prepare for what will be, the best we can.
