And when eight days were completed so that it was time for His circumcision, He was also named Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb. -Luke 2:21
Of all the practices that seem out of touch, circumcision seems to be the most peculiar. Given as a command to the people of Israel through Moses, the foreskin of the male member was to be removed eight days after birth as a way to mark that male child bodily and place him into a covenant between God and man.
To be sure, this practice calls to mind what the LORD said through the Prophet Isaiah, "My ways are not your ways." The idea of shedding blood at the very location on the male body wherewith the pleasure of procreation are associated seems wildly contradictory.
Yet procreation takes plain within the painful reality of sin. This reality is one of no escape without bloodshed; innocent bloodshed. So it happens, when the Holy Son of God reached the age of eight days - a number filled with fulfillment in terms of sabbath rest - His holy, innocent blood is shed for the first time.
It was indeed painful physically, but it was not nearly as painful as being forsaken of God upon an accursed cross of shame in the midst of mockery and sheer bandonment by men as well.
Yet this is what it took, and what it takes, to fulfil the Law of God. Jesus, Whose Name is above every name, Whose name literally means "He shall save His people."
The other reality that attends to circumcision is a separation of the circumcized from the uncircumcised. The people of Israel were to be unlike any other nation. The practice of circumcision was a way of marking them as separate from all other nations, because from them and through their seed, despite sin, the Christ would come in the flesh as God come to save.
Today it is you, the Christian, who are separate from the rest, sundered from them by Holy Baptism into the circumcized Christ Jesus, Whose body and life avail before God on your behalf, and upon Whom you may rely as a High Priest, tempted in every way for you, but victorious for you.
It is His blood and His name alone, that save you.
