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When eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child, His name was called JESUS.

Merry Christmas!

᛭ INI ᛭

Tonight is the Eve of the 8th day of Christmas. Christ was not only circumcised, but He was also given a name, the name above every name. He was named ΙΗϹ, “the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.”

What’s in a name? Not so much anymore. People pick names for all sorts of reasons. There’s a strong Christian tradition to name a child after a person from the Bible, or even the saint on whose commemoration they were baptized. Sometimes kids are given names for family. Today, sometimes the name is picked only because it sounds nice, and there’s no other meaning beyond that.

“Christ” isn’t a name, but rather a title. It means “Anointed One” in Greek, means the same thing as “Messiah.” But His name, ΙΗϹ, wasn’t picked because it sounded nice. “ΙΗϹ” is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua. His name means: “YAHWEH saves.”

You are told everything you need to know about Christ from His name. Not just His name, however, but the day He was given His name: the day He was circumcised. So, what is it that we’re told about Christ from celebrating “The Circumcision and Name of ΙΗϹ”?

CHRIST’S NAME (“ΙΗϹ”) TELLS US HE CAME TO SHED HIS BLOOD.

(I. There’s no other blood shed among men by which propitiation must be made.)

The Son of God takes up flesh and blood for this very reason. He comes that He might shed His blood. There’s no other reason for Him to be flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone. The culmination of the wooden manger, if it was wood, is the wood of Christ’s cross. (If stone, then His tomb.) Either way, Christ shedding His blood looms large. “O blessed day when first was poured The blood of our redeeming Lord! O blessed day when Christ began His saving work for sinful man!” (TLH 115)

You might think it odd to think about the Rite of Circumcision. Now, there’s no reason to breech modesty and consider the act in great detail. But it might seem weird to take up the topic. But it’s our flesh that’s offended by it. For, if it seems grotesque to focus on Christ the Babe shedding His blood, then it is because our flesh has deluded us that we fail to understand how grotesque, how gross and disgusting our sins are to God!

We just think they’re not that bad. Little hiccups, bad habits that we just need more time to fix. Yet, we scarcely fix a single small one. Our flesh festers with iniquity: with lust and coveting, with anger and arrogance, with gluttony and greed, just to name a few. And the Lord calls out: “Circumcise your heart!” (Dt 10) For our sins pollute ourselves and the land. Our so-called “Good Works” are also a polluted garment. Our sins and false worship are a stench that wafts up to the nostrils of God.

Had Christ not come, as a pleasing aroma, sacrifice, to the Father, then no one would be saved. All humanity would fall under the same fate as Sodom and Gomorrah. But Christ has come. His blood is the blood of the eternal covenant. The entire weight of the Law bears down upon Him and His infant flesh. “In love our guilt He undertakes; Sinless, for sin atonement makes. The great Lawgiver for our aid Obedient to the Law is made.” (LSB 115)

(Transition)

When the fullness of the time had come, 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. (Gal 4) Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”). (Gal 3) “While from His mother’s bosom fed, His precious blood He wills to shed; A foretaste of His death He feels, An earnest of His love reveals.” (TLH 115)

In fact, all that we know even from Christ’s name, for CHRIST’S NAME (“ΙΗϹ”) TELLS US HE CAME TO SHED HIS BLOOD. And in fact, this is why He named ΙΗϹ. He is given this name not only to testify to His saving Work, but given a name that we might place our trust in Him, in the one named: ΙΗϹ of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.

(II. There’s no other name under heaven given among by which we must be saved.)

There’s no one else to trust and hope in besides Christ. He was born to bleed for your sins, our lawlessness. “Sin is lawlessness.” (1-Jn 3) But now that He has come and shed His blood, “There [isn’t] salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” And because of what He has done, “ΘϹ also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of ΙΗϹ every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that ΙΗϹ ΧϹ is יהוה, to the glory of ΘϹ the ΠΤΡϹ.” (Phil 2)

And you bear His name. He gives you to share in His name! You have His name by baptism through faith. “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ ΙΗϹ. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” (Gal 3) Thus it is right for us to be called who trust in Him: “Christian,” “little Christs.”

We ought all the more seek from Him to purify us and our hearts! That we might be what He would have us be in Him, behave like it, too! (You really should.) “He who calls you is faithful, He will surely do it.” (1-Thess 4) For

“In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.” (Col 2)

“To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission of sins.” (Acts 10) As it is written: “Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, And whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” (Rom 9)

(Conclusion)

You are told everything you need to know about Christ from His name. Not just His name, however, but the day He was given His name: the day He was circumcised. And, so Luke 2:21, “The Circumcision and Naming of ΙΗϹ,” tells you everything about Christ, for

CHRIST’S NAME (“ΙΗϹ”) TELLS US HE CAME TO SHED HIS BLOOD.

In His veins flowed the blood of the eternal covenent, for it was not merely human blood, but the blood of the eternal Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. “Glory be to ΙΗϹ, who in bitter pains, Poured for [thee] His lifeblood from His sacred veins.” (LSB 433)

Poured first in Bethlehem at eight days old. Poured out finally at Calvary. The culmination of His Manger and His Cross, the culmination of shedding of His blood, is here for you. The blood of the eternal covenant, given at His Last Will and Testament: body and blood for you for the forgiveness of sins, that you might believe all the more in Him, whose name you bear by baptism through faith. CHRIST’S NAME (“ΙΗϹ”) TELLS US HE CAME TO SHED HIS BLOOD, and shed it for you, for the forgiveness of sins.

Merry Christmas!

᛭ INI ᛭