January: Day 1: Teaching 2: Circumcision of the Lord

January: Day 1: Teaching 2:
Circumcision of the Lord
 
(On the Reasons Why the Lord Underwent Circumcision)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the eighth day after His birth, deigned to undergo circumcision, and He was given the name Jesus, which had previously been foretold by the Archangel Gabriel to the Holy Virgin Mary.

II. a) Jesus Christ accepted circumcision, firstly, in order to fulfill the law, which required that every Jew be circumcised on the eighth day, a precursor to Holy Baptism in Christianity. "I came not," He said, "to destroy the law, but to fulfill it" (Matt. 5:17). He obeyed the law in order to make us, who were guilty and subject to the law, free. Concerning this, the Holy Apostle Paul says: "God sent His Son, who was under the law, that He might redeem them that were under the law" (Gal. 4:4.5).

b) Secondly, the Lord accepted circumcision to demonstrate that He had assumed true, not imaginary, flesh, and thereby to silence the heretics who vainly asserted that Christ had not assumed true human flesh, but only had its appearance. Circumcision revealed not an imaginary, but His genuine humanity. For if His body had been apparent, and not real, then how could circumcision have been performed on an apparent body? From this perspective, Saint Ephraim the Syrian, discussing the Lord's circumcision, says: "If the Savior did not have real flesh, then whom did Joseph circumcise? But since the Savior had true flesh, He accepted circumcision as a man, in infancy He was stained with the blood of His body, like the Son of Man, and suffered and wept from pain, as is proper to human nature."

c) Thirdly, the Lord accepted physical circumcision in order to introduce spiritual circumcision for us. Having ended the carnal Old Testament, He instituted a new, spiritual one. And just as the old, carnal man had to circumcise the sensual flesh, so the new, spiritual man must circumcise the passions of the soul: rage, anger, envy, pride, impurity, and other sinful desires.

d) Fourth, the Lord accepted fleshly circumcision in order to accomplish our redemption from infancy. The Lord, beginning to suffer for us in infancy, sheds drops of His blood in the first days of His life, and begins to endure and suffer for us from childhood, so that when He grows to a perfect man, He may shed all His blood for us on the cross, for the washing away of the sins of the whole world. Human life is full of labors that begin in the morning and end in the evening. In the morning, from His swaddling clothes, Christ the God-man sets out to His work, to labor, to abide in them until that evening, when the sun is darkened and darkness reigns until the ninth hour. What does He labor at, what does He do? "He works out our salvation" (John 5:17). In the morning He begins to sow drops of His blood, so that by evening He may reap the beautiful fruit of our redemption.

III. O Lord, enthroned on high with the Father without beginning and His Divine Spirit! You deigned to be born on earth of a virgin, Your Mother, unwedded. Therefore You were circumcised as an eight-day-old infant. Glory to Your all-good counsel, glory to Your providence, glory to Your condescension, O only Lover of mankind (Troparion of the Feast). 

 

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.