Luke 2:21- New Year’s (Eve) - December 31, 2012
According
to the Law
Legal year. That makes it sound kind of unexciting. But I call it the legal year, because that’s
exactly what it is. What else is
it? Tomorrow is legally, according to the law, 2013. 2012 will legally be over. There’s no avoiding or undoing the passage of
time. We know that. The law, however, with its legal years, makes sure that we don’t
forget it either. That’s what the law
does in all of its forms. It doesn’t
make anything so. It just tells you
what’s what. 2012 will soon be over and
it will be too late to make 2012 anything other than what it was. That’s the law.
Tonight we close a year
lived under God’s grace by commending a new year into His care. But consider what else brings us here
tonight. January 1st just so
happens to mark that day when the legal calendar intersects perfectly with the
church calendar. It’s really kind of
neat. Consider the theme. Just as the year begins on January 1st,
according to the law, so also, for
the church year, it is on January 1st that we celebrate how Jesus
placed Himself under the law. In His birth, God submitted to our physical
limitations. That’s Christmas. Eight days later, in His circumcision, God
submitted to our legal restrictions.
That’s New Year’s.
“But when the fullness of the time had come,”
Paul writes in Galatians 4, “God sent forth His Son, born of
a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we
might receive the adoption as sons.”
These two births are
two different occasions – 8 days apart from each other. But they are both equally necessary for our
redemption. We celebrate Christmas. In time the almighty God took on human flesh
in order to dwell with sinners. How
gracious. But God did not become man
just to be our example. No. Because then we would have to save
ourselves. But consider that that’s all
He would have been for us, had He not eight days after He was born of a woman
also submitted Himself to what God’s law required of sinners.
But couldn’t He have
fulfilled the law without having been circumcised? Couldn’t He have still lived a holy and
commendable life in full obedience to His Father? Couldn’t He have loved His neighbor as
Himself, helped him, spoken well of him, protected him, and kept Himself pure
form all lustful thoughts? Couldn’t He
have? Well of course He could have! He would have! But He would have done it only for
Himself. His obedience would have done
us no good.
But by submitting His
infant body to circumcision, Jesus placed Himself where we were. He placed Himself under the law that held us
and convicted us as sinners. Jesus was
circumcised so that all the good that He did, all the bad that He suffered – He
did and suffered for us – in our place, for our benefit.
Now before I go on, I’d
like to explain a little bit about circumcision so that this makes sense.
God called Abram – that
was his name – it means exalted father
– but God had given him no children – sort of an embarrassing name. But anyway God called Abram out from idolatry
to come and serve only the one true God.
How does one serve the one true God?
Well, by believing in Christ, of course – by finding in Christ alone
God’s eternal favor. God promised
childless Abram that in his Seed all the nations of the earth would be
blessed. This Seed was Christ. This was the promise that Abram believed and
that was counted to him as righteousness in God’s sight. It is the exact same faith by which all
sinners are and have ever been justified.
It is faith in Jesus.
As a sign and seal that
God would keep His promise and send the Savior of the nations through his
lineage – as an Old Testament sacrament if you will – God later circumcised
Abram by removing a portion of his flesh.
And when he was circumcised, God reiterated the promise He had made by
giving him a new name. No longer would
he be “exalted father.” He would be Abraham, “father of many nations.” His new name reflected the promise that was
made to him concerning Christ in whom all the nations would be blessed. It was for this reason that it became a
tradition among the Jews to name their sons when they were circumcised. It was a confession of the Gospel.
Later, God gave the law
to Moses, and so also reasserted the covenant of circumcision. The law did then what it does now. It revealed what Abraham had known about
himself. It revealed sin. It revealed the innate corruption of man’s
heart, and his inborn unbelief and hatred of God. It does this still today by showing us our
failures to do what God requires. This
is a corruption that we’re born with.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh.
Circumcision indicated
this by being a mark in the flesh. And
consider what portion of the flesh was removed, and consider why. The very line of children that Abraham would
sire and through which the Savior would come was a line of children conceived
and born as sinners, under the law, accountable to God. That’s why only the boys were circumcised –
because it was Adam who sinned and it is through this our first father’s sin
that we all have inherited our corruption.
This sin is ours because we were conceived in the natural way. Because of this, we are all destined to
return to the ground from which we came, and from which Adam got his name. Circumcision was a mark of death. It was a mark of pain. It shed blood. It was for sinners marked as sinners who
needed to be redeemed – whose children
needed to be redeemed. It was a reminder
of their need for Christ.
But in it, was also a
sign of what would come in the fullness of time. Christ would be born without sin, because He
was born of God from eternity. He would
be born without sin, because He would be born of a virgin, without the help of
a man. He would be born of a woman, who
in herself bore no such sign of mortality – think of this – there’s a reason
why girls weren’t circumcised – no seed was sown that would bring death. But from Mary’s womb, God brought forth life
who would freely give Himself into death.
The Seed that was promised to Abraham became the Seed of the woman who
in bruising His heel would crush the serpent’s head.
Christ was born to be a
Savior. That’s what the angel told
Joseph. “And you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from
their sins.” Jesus means the Lord
saves. But He did not receive this
name until He fully committed Himself to redeem sinners by placing Himself
under the law that condemned sinners. In
His circumcision, Jesus was sealed as one who would die. He was marked as one who was accountable to
God. He was appointed as one who would
bleed, and even there in His circumcision, He would shed His first drops of
blood to redeem us. And in so doing, He
justly became what His name said He was: Savior.
Jesus came to do what the law commanded. He did.
Jesus came to suffer what the law threatened. He suffered.
After having lived the life that we could not, the life that earns only
praise and reward, Jesus suffered on the cross for every life that fell
short. He suffered in His body the death
of a hundred billion sinners and more who were born spiritually blind, dead,
and hostile to God. But by His perfect
life and passion, He reconciled them all to their God. As St. Paul writes in Romans 10: “For Christ is the
end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”
The law speaks and it is done. 2012 is over.
It’s soon to be legal. What
happened happened. The law keeps records
and numbers what You have done and left undone.
The law works wrath and makes a sinner out of you. But it couldn’t make a sinner out of Jesus. That’s what makes Him our Savior. He gives us His perfect year, His perfect
2012, His perfect life that will extend far beyond 2013. He gives to us His righteousness not where He
has removed flesh from our bodies like in circumcision that marks a man as one
who will die and who will sow seeds of death.
No, He clothes us in His perfect obedience in Holy Baptism, where He
buries us into His own death and raises us with Him in His glorious
resurrection so that we will bear fruit that lasts forever.
God keeps His promises.
The covenant he sealed with circumcision proves this. The death that circumcision pointed to has
occurred. And now Christ joins us to it,
so that we might rise and live with Him forever.
·
We
are His members.
o
Through
Baptism.
o
Not
by flesh removed but by sin removed, and the answer of a good conscience toward
God.
o
Old
Man drowned. New Man raised.
o
New
desires. Live before God forever. Honor God’s name here in time and hereafter
in eternity.
·
We
are reminded of our Baptism here in the benediction from Num. 6.
o
The
name/work of God is placed upon us and applied to us.
o
God
blesses us by giving us His name. Jesus
fulfills His name.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
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