Luke 2:21-26 – Time to be Circumcised - AGAIN
With the new year now upon us, we enter an interesting time where people begin to think about making a new start. New Year’s resolutions crop up all over the place. Listen to these New Year Resolutions from a cat …
Cat’s New Year Resolutions
o I will not swat my human’s head repeatedly when she’s on the family room floor trying to do sit ups.
o When my human is typing at the computer, her forearms are “not” a hammock.
o Computer and TV screens do not exist to backlight my lovely tail.
o I will not bring the police to the front door by stepping on the speaker phone button and then the automatic 000 dial button.
o I will not speed dial the overseas numbers.
o I will not walk on the keyboard when my human is writing important emiognaierp . . .
o I will not eat large numbers of assorted bugs, then come home and puke them up so the humans can see that I’m getting plenty of roughage.
o I will not perch on my humans chest in the middle of the night and stare into her eyes until she wakes up .
o I will not stick my paw into any container to see if there is something in it. if I do, I will not hiss and scratch when my human has to shave me to get the glue out of my fur.
A Dog’s New Year Resolutions
o I will not roll on dead seagulls, fish, crabs, etc.
o I will not lick my human’s face after eating animal poop.
o I will not chew my human’s toothbrush and not tell them.
o When in the car, I will not insist on having the window rolled down when it’s raining outside.
o I will not drop soggy tennis balls in the underwear of someone who is sitting on the toilet.
o I will not bark each time I hear a door bell on TV.
o My head does not belong in the refrigerator.
o I do not need to suddenly stand straight up when I’m lying under the coffee table.
o The garbage collector is NOT stealing our stuff.
o I must shake the rainwater out of my fur BEFORE entering the house.
Come on, who here has made a new years resolution this year? I’m sure many of you have – I hope for your sake they are realistic and that plan to keep them.
When you look at New Year Resolutions, they are our attempts to put away the past failures and begin the New Year afresh. Some of us may determine in our minds, we want to get rid of some of that excess weight, or we may determine that we want to read the bible more, or be more patient with our children. What ever it is, it is an attempt to wipe the slate clean and start over.
If you’ve got your bibles there tonight, I want you to open them to Luke 2:21-24. Because in this passage, I think that God has something for us in this New Year. Some of you might like to consider Jesus’ example as a good example for your own lives here tonight.
Read Luke 2:21-24.
Pray – that God would show us what he would have for us this coming year.
This is an interesting little aside in Luke’s gospel and reveals 3 Jewish rituals that happened when a child was born. It was a new beginning for the new parents – a new stage with a new start. Much like the New Year is for us every year.
1) The first ritual mentioned was Circumcision (vs 21). How’s that for a New Year’s resolution guys. I know a bit too painful – but don’t throw the baby out with the bath water – Pun intended.
It was Jewish law that on the 8th day after birth, every Jewish boy was circumcised. For those that don’t know what that is – it means that the foreskin over the tip of the penis was cut off. This was a sacred ceremony – so sacred in fact that it was carried out even on the Sabbath when almost everything else was forbidden. Circumcision was a fairly common thing. Most other nations around Israel practiced circumcision, but usually it was kept for initiation rites and wasn’t done on infants. Some nations didn’t practice it though – of greatest note, the Philistines. Because the Philistines were sworn enemies of Israel, the term “uncircumcised” became a derogatory term which came to be used against anyone who wasn’t one of God’s chosen people.
So why 8 days? Well this was in keeping with God’s command to Abraham in Gen 17:9-14 Listen to it …
Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. 10 This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner—those who are not your offspring. 13 Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
Circumcision was therefore a sign of the Covenant between God and Abraham that 1) he would make his descendents into a great nation, 2) that he would make his name great 3) he would bless all nations through Abraham’s descendants. God’s covenant involved sending Jesus, a descendant of Abraham, to come and die for all nations so they could be forgiven – that is a blessing!!! Circumcision was a sign that this promise was going to happen.
It is interesting that Jesus, although he had no need of forgiveness of sins, still was required to keep the law of circumcision. His circumcision was a sign that God was going to fulfill the covenant – through his own death.
At the same time that this baby was circumcised, he was given his name – Jesus – the name the angel had given Mary and Joseph.
2) The Second ritual that occurred was Redemption of the First Born. We read in vs 23 as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”. According to Jewish law (Num 18:9-18), every first born male, both human and animal was sacred and belonged to God who entrusted it to his Priests & Levites. The Priests and Levites kept all the firstborn cows, sheep and goats for offerings and food, but all firstborn children and unclean animals, they were to redeem or sell them back to those who brought them to God. The Price of the redemption was 5 shekels of silver. That was about 55gm of silver – about $15 – Cheap really by today’s standards, but equivalent to 6 months pay when the custom was initiated in Numbers.
This ceremony called the “Redemption of the Firstborn” occurred when the babies were 1 month old. Jesus was the first born and so belonged to God – We know that don’t we. God was willing to give him up to live on this earth and ultimately to die for us. 3D But it would cost something. Mary and Joseph had to redeem, or buy the Saviour of the World from God. Before he could die for our sins and redeem us from Satan’s grip, Mary and Joseph had to redeem Jesus from God – Interesting concept isn’t it – His life and death cost mankind something.
3) The last ritual that occurred was the Purification of Mary and Joseph. When a woman bore a male child, she was considered unclean for 40 days. If it was a female child, she was unclean for 80 days (Lev 12). She could go about her daily business, but not go into the temple or share in any religious ceremony. Therefore Joseph was the one who took Jesus to be circumcised and redeemed. At the end of the 40 days for the case of Mary, she was required to go to the temple and offer up a lamb and a dove or a pigeon. If the mother was poor, then a second dove or pigeon could be offered instead of a lamb. Mary offered 2 doves (vs 24).
These 3 rituals remind us that God considers relationships with him to be incredibly important. They give us what I think are some good New Year’s resolutions. Let’s start at the third ritual and work backwards …
1) We can only approach God if we were pure, so the purification of Mary was essential to restore the fellowship with God.
A man stood by creek that usually had lovely clear water in it. But today it was muddy and yukky. He waited for it to clear up, but the muddy water kept flowing. Finally he decided to walk upstream to find out what was causing the mud and soon he came across a great big wild pig in the creek, taking a bath.
The only way to clean up the creek was to get rid of the pig. And the only way we can clean up our lives so that God is pleased is if we get rid of the sin in our lives. This New Year, we need to resolve to maintain a close relationship with God by keeping ourselves pure by getting rid of the sin that pollutes our lives. We need to constantly come to him in repentance so our communion with him is unhindered.
2) The Second Resolution … We often forget that everything that is ours is given to us by God. The Redemption of the Firstborn, reminds us to offer thanks to God to whom it is due. This New Year, we need to be mindful of all that God has given to us and thank him – But more than that, we need to give him the first fruits of our earnings, our time, our energies. Instead of acting like everything we have is God’s, lets get into the practice of offering up a tenth or even more of all that is ours to God for his use before we pay our taxes and other expenses.
3) And Lastly … Circumcision. Circumcision on the surface is a fairly barbaric ritual. It is certainly not a pleasant ceremony. But the physical act it in itself is useless. Paul writes to a group of Jews in Rome concerning this …
RO 2:25 Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. 26 If those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? 27 The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.
RO 2:28 A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. 29 No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man’s praise is not from men, but from God.
What was important for Paul was not the physical act of circumcision of the penis, but the spiritual act of circumcision of the heart. To be a Jew, one had to obey God’s laws both inwardly and outwardly.
If you were to ask one of these Jews, “what makes you a Jew”, they would probably have said – I’m circumcised, I go to the Temple to offer the appropriate sacrifices, I go to pray to God, etc. But this was all useless unless they were obeying God’s laws which showed them how to live.
It’s like us as a Christians. If I ask you – “what makes you a Christian” – you might say – Well I come to church. I send my kids to Trinity. I don’t drink, I don’t swear. I’m even part of a bible study group. But these are outward things. These are like circumcision.
Paul is saying that you can’t tell a Christian from outward things. In the end of the day, the outward things don’t matter at all, what really matters is your heart attitude to God and his law.
I heard a story about a man who had a mouse in his house and his wife wanted him to catch it. His problem was that he didn’t have any cheese. So he cut a picture of cheese out of a magazine and placed it in the trap. He thought, "I’ll just fool the mouse." When he went check the trap the next morning to see if he had caught the mouse he found a beautiful mouse in the trap. There was only one problem. It was a picture of a mouse.
Too many Christians are just cardboard cutouts. They are counterfeit Christians. But God isn’t interested in Glossy outward appearances. Circumcision of the heart is what God is looking for – that is an attitude that says, I want to obey God and his law. A Christian is one who doesn’t just look like Christ, but is one who acts like Christ, lives like Christ and follows Christ. That means getting to know him personally. That means learning to rely on him wholly. That means wanting to obey him completely.
Can you call yourself a Christian this first Sunday in 2004? Are you truly seeking to follow God, or are you just going through the outward motions. There are thousands of people who are experts on Christianity who never seem to practice it. Are you one of these people. You can be circumcised outwardly without being circumcised inwardly you know.
So this New Year, what are your resolutions? To lose weight? To have a holiday? To stop eating out? These may be fine, but they are all outward things.
God is more concerned about our relationship with him. He wants us to be like Mary, Joseph and Jesus – So let’s resolve …
o to remain pure,
o to give to him what is rightfully his and
o to be circumcised – no not outwardly, but inwardly – Again and again and again.
And these should be our New Year’s resolutions every year.
Yes this New Year is circumcision time – AGAIN.
