Fr Saulo Bledoff on The Circumcision of Our Lord

HOMILY

CIRCUMCISION AND NAME OF OUR LORD

GENESIS 17:3b-14 / GALATIANS 3:23-29 / LUKE 2:21

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 Grace to you and peace, from the God Incarnate, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

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Today’s Gospel is probably the shortest we read in any Service, and it might feel somehow silly that we would still have all the ceremony—the alleluias, the glorias, the procession—just to read one single verse. But that is to teach us that every single line from the Gospel is full of truth to make us wise for our salvation, and is therefore worthy of honour, attention and deep meditation, no matter how short.

The one verse we just heard is soaked  and dripping with that central truth of Christianity which is the theme of the whole Christmas Season: that in Christ God became flesh. Because circumcision has everything to do with the flesh—it is done in the flesh, it bleeds like only flesh can bleed—nothing can be more in the flesh than being cut in that way.

According to the Law of the Old Covenant made with Abraham, every male baby had his foreskin cut off. Now, that makes us shiver—it is gross and shameful; it is too intimate and intrusive; it is bloody and painful. But it was meant to be. It was a reminder that sin is gross and shameful; that sin intrudes into the most intimate corners of our bodies and souls; and that sin requires pain and blood—death—to be atoned for. Besides, circumcision was done in that way as a reminder that sin is inherited from the seed of our first father, like a curse or a disease (Ps 51:5; Jo 3:6). We were all in the loins of Adam when he fell and was cut off from God, and therefore we all fell together with him, and we were all cut off from God with him (see Hebrews 7:10; Psalm 51:5).

On the other hand, the mark left by that cut also reminded Abraham and his male descendants of the blessing God had placed upon their seed when he made a covenant with them: from their seed would come the Saviour. And so it eventually happened. Mary, the Mother of our Lord, is from the seed of Abraham. But her child had no earthly father. Her child was from God, whose Spirit overshadowed and hallowed her womb. Her child came from a holy, uncontaminated source. A new, sinless Adam is born from her. There was no inherited curse in His flesh. Still, on the eighth day He was circumcised. Why? Above all, why is He cut in that way if He didn’t come to marry any woman and generate offspring like other men do?

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That’s where we are mistaken. He didn’t marry any woman in particular, because He was already betrothed to a bride, His Church. And He would be responsible for generating more offspring than any other man. He also came to generate offspring for Abraham, but above all for God. Now, people will often think this is just a metaphor, that it is just a figure of speech to call us children of God—God, after all, cannot have children like we have. But I want to show you that our place as His children is a concrete reality. And for that to be a reality it is fundamental that Christ had and have flesh like our flesh. It is only because He has flesh that we can truly become children of God. Otherwise, our union with the Father would be just a fiction, a “let’s pretend that”, and not a reality. Or in the best case, a legal arrangement, an adoption of sorts, not more than that. We all know that, no matter how much a father loves an adopted child, he can never make that child flesh of his flesh. That child was never in his loins. There is no direct physical blood relationship between the two. But Christ takes on human flesh and blood, and then He places that flesh and blood physically inside us in the Holy Sacrament. His flesh and blood become part of our flesh and blood. And now we can be made children of God in reality, because we share, we are united with the flesh of the Only Begotten of the Father.

Nothing is closer to our being than our own flesh, and nothing gets closer to our flesh than the food we eat—food food goes inside our flesh, it becomes part of us, it builds us up. So the only-begotten Son of God takes on flesh, and He makes that flesh, which is the thing closest to Him, to become food, which is the thing that gets closest to our flesh and can become literally, part of us. His flesh and blood don’t evaporate once you go back to your pew from the communion rail, it becomes part of you, it goes home with you. And so we become children of God in reality, because we become flesh of the flesh of His only begotten Son—”You are flesh of My flesh and bone of My bones”, says the new Adam. Otherwise Paul could not say that we are all the same body of Christ; or that we are all one in Christ and seed of Abraham, like in our Epistle. And God would not have promised Abraham that he would be the Father of many nations—in the plural—not only of Jews (the original Hebrew says “goim”—literally, Abraham would be the Father of many “gentiles”).

So it is very fitting that He is also circumcised. With His body He is responsible for generating a new offspring for His father Abraham, like our Epistle said that in Christ we are all children of Abraham. An offspring more numerous than the stars, like God promised Abraham. In that way, the seed of Abraham truly became a blessing for all nations, and Abraham really has children from all the corners of the earth. But above all, Christ generates a new offspring for His Father in Heaven. Not by His seed, as through a means, like other man, but directly from His blood.

He is truly—in reality—our new Adam and begetter. He has his new Eve, His Bride, His Church, taken from His pierced side, like Adam had Eve taken from his ribs. And from that water and blood that came out from His side, He gives this bride the means to generate His offspring. He gives His bride a womb, the baptismal font, and in the waters of this womb children are conceived for God. And then He gives them the Sacrament of His Body, where these children are made blood of His blood. We were all in the body of Adam, in the seed of his loins, and there we were all cursed, but now we are all in the body and blood of Christ, as a new and blessed offspring. It’s not a symbolic thing, an idea, a feeling, a legal arrangement, but is a down to earth reality, from the substance of His body. That’s the mystery of the Incarnation. That’s the New Testament, the New Covenant, no longer in the seed of Abraham, but in His blood.

In Christ, our relationship with the Heavenly Father is closer, stronger, higher, more perfect than our relationship with our earthly father. It’s so beautiful the way St. John describes this reality in that Gospel we heard on Christmas Day. He says that Jesus, the eternal Son, was in the bosom of the Father (1:18). And in the same breath he says that now we are given the right to become children of this same Father (1:12). Think of this image, the bosom of a person. Nothing is closer than that. Imagine that you are laying down in your couch and then a person comes and lays down right against you, in your bosom. Who would have the right to do that? Only a beloved spouse or a beloved child. Only the people closest to you. In Christ, this is our place with the Father. We are given the right to claim this place. We are now there, cuddled in the bosom of the Father, in that eternal embrace where only the Only Begotten of the Father once was, but where we are now, as His newly begotten children, begotten not from the loins of any men, but from His very heart and blood.

That’s what you need to have in mind when you say, “Our Father”. That’s how close we are to God. People often want to be close to God, but they think of that as just a feeling. So there are moments when they feel they are close to God, and in other moments they feel like they no longer are. But we are not close to God just as a feeling or a spiritual thing. We are close to Him in reality. Something as solid as, and more solid than any earthly relationship. No matter how we feel.

So, today, for our comfort and assurance, He lets that flesh He just took a few days ago be cut. To show us the blood and say “See, be at peace, I am flesh of your flesh, My promises to you are a reality”. He is in such a hurry to comfort us that He cannot wait more than just a few days to give us proof. While still nursing on His mother, He feels the need to already take the first sip from that chalice of pain He will later on drink all the way to the bottom, once He is able to experience it more fully. One drop of His blood is worth more than us all, because it is the blood of God. But He won’t stop there. He won’t give just one drop of His blood. He will give it all. All that He had to give, He will give. He won’t withhold anything. So that there is no doubt that our sin has been atoned for. Today He is marked as the victim for the sacrifice—the Father will abandon the Son of His bosom on Golgotha, while we are united to Him as dear children.  He is cut today, to start healing the rent of sin that once separated us from His Father. He will bring us closer than we were before.

So you see how Christ doesn’t withhold anything from you, not His blood nor anything else. Even that thing that was exclusively His, His place with the Father, He now shares with you. Would He withhold anything else from you? Would He deny anything to the people who are His blood relatives? Isn’t He the One who, even when He was dying, thought of His own blood, and placed His Virgin Mother under the care of the Beloved Disciple? And this is the same One who said “Who is My mother and who are My brothers? And He stretched out His hand toward His disciples and said, “Here are My mother and My brothers!  For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven is My brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:48-50). And He is not just saying that, He makes us to be His family, in reality, as we saw. Could He ever forget us? Could He ever leave in the grave His own flesh—those who are flesh of His flesh and blood of His blood? Could that ever happen if not even the strength of death was able to keep His flesh in the grave?

This is all too strong and too great to bear on this side of glory or to unwrap in a sermon. And all of that from just a few words in the Gospel. So, for now, we must finish. Amen.

 And now may He who by His Holy Incarnation gathered into one things earthly and heavenly, fill you with the sweetness of His peace. Amen.

Rev. Saulo A. Peiter Bledoff, p.

Preached on 4 January AD 2025 at St John’s Lutheran Church in Stevensville, Ontario