Sermon Text-Luke 2:21 (EHV)
“After eight days passed, when the child was circumcised, he was named Jesus, the
name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”
Dear friends in Christ Jesus, to whom God has given a most blessed name and blessed inheritance in heaven: This is the eighth day of Christmas, the Name-Day of Jesus. Coincidentally, the calendars of some cultures arbitrarily mark the change of year on this day.
Far more important, however, is the significance of what occurred on the eighth day of Jesus life, when, according to the Jewish law he was circumcised, and as directed by the Angel before His conception, He was named Jesus, Savior, for He is our Savior from sin, and from the curse of the law. By this name, given to him by the angel,
JESUS IS REVEALED AS THE SAVIOR
I. Who Shows Us Our Sin & Calls to Repentance
II. Who Is Our Righteousness
I. Who Shows Us Our Sin & Calls to Repentance
How does Jesus, at the age of eight days, by being subjected to circumcision, call us to repentance for our sins? After all, he is just eight days old, right? That is what reason would say. But reason can only deal with what is seen. Something else is required here, something which reveals what the eyes cannot see. The word of God reveals what is actually going on here. Isaiah writes, “Therefore the Lord himself will give a sign for all of you. Look! The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and name him Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14, EHV)
And Luke records the words of the angel to Mary, “The angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35, EHV)
Paul makes it, if possible, even clearer: “But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son to be born of a woman, so that he would be born under the law, in order to redeem those under the law, so that we would be adopted as sons.” (Galatians 4:4–5, EHV) So what we see here through the eyes of faith is not just an eight-day-old child, subjected to circumcision. What we see here is the eternal Son of the Father, the second person of the Trinity, who has not just humbled himself to be born a human being, but who has humbled himself to be subject to the same laws and the same afflictions in life that we are subject to.
The Same Laws: Jesus was born under the laws that God had given to Israel, as well as under all the moral laws given to humankind, as we just read from Galatians. In Genesis Abraham was told, “Every boy among you who is eight days old shall be circumcised, every male throughout your generations, whether he is born in your house or purchased with money from any foreigner who is not descended from you.” (Genesis 17:12, EHV) It was also reiterated in Leviticus 12. “On the eighth day, the foreskin of his flesh shall be circumcised.” (Leviticus 12:3, EHV)
The Same Afflictions: He was not only subject to our laws, but also to our sufferings. The writer to the Hebrews put it this way, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet was without sin. So let us approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:15–16, EHV) How does that call us to repentance? Because it shows us what true love is. It shows us the degree of love that God’s law demands of us. It highlights the selflessness that is truly required of us, for God says, “Be holy, as I the Lord your God am holy.”
How much are you inclined to be put out for another person? How much are you willing to give up to have peace in your marriage? Peace with your brother or sister? Go ahead and tell us that YOU are the one who is RIGHT. Couldn’t Jesus say the same? Go ahead and tell us that YOU deserve to be treated with more respect. Couldn’t Jesus demand the same? Jesus did not have to set aside His divine power and honor and glory, even when He was born. He still is God, after all. So it was on purpose. It was FOR YOU that He permitted His blood to be shed even on that eighth day of His life. When our lives are contrasted with this perfect love of Christ, all the sins of humankind are
condemned.
The bickering among the family, because all will be served, and none will give up their “rights.” The neglect of word and sacrament is because we don’t want to give up “our” time. The misuse of God’s name because WE feel a need for self-expression. Murder, including abortion and suicide, because people want to be the ones who both begin and end life. Sexual perversions, because to follow the lusts of the flesh is the ultimate way of “getting our own way.”
Whether our sins appear to us to be of great consequence or small, all our lives show themselves to be riddled with pathetic selfishness, compared to the devotion of Jesus Christ to our salvation. As our Savior, Jesus shows us the depths of our sins from which He must redeem us. Do you understand? This is the holiness with which God has fellowship. This is the servanthood that moved the Father to say, “This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Do you have this holiness? This righteousness? None of us do. So where are we going to get it?
II. Who Is Our Righteousness
This grace and mercy and holiness are part of God’s nature. God became man so that once again it could be part of man’s nature. Since one man lost this resemblance to God and plunged us all into sin, so one man could restore this righteousness, this image of God, and so save us. His name is Jesus, Savior. He is also called the Christ, the anointed one. The one chosen to destroy the devil’s work. He is the one chosen to die our death for us. He has satisfied the law of God, both as to the righteous demands of the law, and as to the penalty. You should know the names we give to these: The Active Obedience of Christ, and the Passive Obedience of Christ. Jesus’ active obedience is the obedience, the holiness, that He owes God as a human being, born under the law. Jesus’ passive obedience is His further willingness to humble Himself to bear the troubles of this life: –the pain, the sorrow, the hunger, the thirst, the suffering, the poverty, the labors, the sweat, the sorrow, the fatigue, the hatred, the torture. These He suffered for us, in our place, as though He were a mere sinful mortal man, squashed under the decree of consequences for sin. And more, His passive obedience included His rejection as sinner by the holy God, being cast away and forsaken by the love and mercy of God, so that that same love and mercy could be turned to us instead. “God made him, who did not know sin, to become sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21, EHV)
It was concluded upon the cross. It was begun at His conception. But especially here at the eighth day, when first his blood was shed. Here, he first felt in his body the commands of the law upon sinners, the suffering that He would bear for us. I hope you have a most happy and blessed new year. All the more because, as we recognize today, one has given Himself to you, to be your SAVIOR.
AMEN.