On the 8th day of Christmas...

...we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Name. The Jewish custom is to circumcise and name baby boys eight days after they are born. Jesus was every bit a Jew. We are reminded that Jesus came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.  And so, we commemorate the day that the Christ child was circumcised- marking him a Jew- and named Jesus- which means "the Lord saves."  Suggested readings include Luke 2:21-40 and Psalm 8.

Luci Shaw reflects on this occasion (as recorded in Luke 2) in her poem, Simeon:


Expectant, though never knowing quite
what he was watching for, the old man
had waited out the years of a long life
to be in the right place,
at the right time.

How many generations of crying babies
brought by new parents into the holy precincts
for dedication? How many innocent doves
wrung by the neck for their blood,
and burned at the altar? Yet, when they
came with their child and their pigeons,
and when the man Simeon, seized by Spirit,
took the infant in his arms, his eyes
looked into the eyes of God; there was
that flash of absolute knowing.

So, as the Law decreed, he gave the child
back to the Master of the Universe, singing
for joy (salvation had now come),
and grief (a sword was in his song).

Here was the fulfillment of Simeon's expectation.
Here in the Presentation, he saw the
commencement of the Offering.

I remember when Liam was circumcised. Though we are not Jewish, Liam was circumcised on or around the eighth day of his life (for scheduling reasons).  I was not able to watch it. I had to send Daniel into the back room of the practice to be with Liam when he had his foreskin removed. (I know there is hot debate over this practice, but we adhere (no pun intended) to the practice of circumcision.) It's strange to think of our Lord undergoing the same painful process. Perhaps that's just one of many reasons why people do not believe in his divinity: surely a baby who bleeds, like all the other babies, during his circumcision couldn't possibly be God incarnate. And yet He is. This shedding of blood and, later, His ultimate shedding of blood, remind us that God became man. Jesus was every bit a man, every bit a Jew, and is yet every bit God. He is a mystery indeed.

What aspect of Jesus' humanity strikes you?