Monday, January 1, 2007
Eighth Christmas Day
Luke 2:21 And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child, His name was called JESUS, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.
HIS NAME IS JESUS
When God tells people to do something, He is very specific. When, beginning with Abraham, God told Old Testament Israel to practice circumcision as a religious rite, He told them exactly when (eighth day) and why (sign of the covenant). When God sent word that His incarnate Son was to be named "Jesus", He told both Mary and Joseph. The naming of the Child was primarily Joseph's responsibility, but this Child's name was so significant that God spelled it out in two angelic announcements.
Today is the eighth Day of Christmas -- the only "Day of Christmas" specifically named in the Scriptures. On the eighth day of the life of the Son of God among us, the Lord's instruction regarding both circumcision and the Child's name were carried out by His foster-father Joseph.
The custom of naming a male child on the day of his circumcision was no doubt meaningful for devout Jews, but in the case of Jesus the significance is both striking and unparalleled. God's covenant with Abraham was to culminate in the "Seed of the Woman" through whom "all nations of the earth will be blessed" (Genesis 12:3).
Here is that Child. Every other circumcision symbolized the human need to be cleansed of sin down to the very source-point of our existence. (Sinfulness is inherited.) This Child's circumcision is not about His need for cleansing, but ours. The covenant-God is Himself placed under the covenant agreement He made centuries before -- in order to bring to fulfillment the promise of cleansing that lay at the heart of that covenant -- in order "to save His people from their sins" (Mt 1:21).
Considering this, one would almost think that devout folk like Joseph and Mary would have settled on the name of "Jesus" ("Jehovah saves") on their own. But then we remember that it was, after all, a father's prerogative to name his son -- and He did.
Jesus! Name of priceless worth To the fallen sons of earth,
For the promise that it gave, "Jesus shall His people save."
Jesus! Name of wondrous love, Human name of God above;
Pleading only this, we flee, Helpless, O our God, to Thee.
