Conqu’ring Kings their titles take

From the foes they captive make

Jesus by a nobler deed

From the myriads he has freed!

Happy New Year everybody!

You might not know this, but the first of January hasn’t always been where we reckon the New Year from. And yet, there is a real fittingness to starting the new year on this day. Because in the Church calendar, the first of January is also the eighth day of Christmas. Which, if you think about it, is the day to celebrate the circumcision and naming of Jesus.

There might well be something within you that recoils at that thought. Christians often have a strange squeamishness about circumcision which isn’t there at all in Scripture.

It’s important that we don’t give in to that impulse for a host of reasons. For one, history testifies to the devastating effect that erasing Jesus’ Jewishness has had on the Church’s self understanding and its relationship with the Jewish people. Given that history, anything that reminds Gentile Christians that we are the foreigners benefitting from an essentially Jewish Messiah is healthy.

But beyond that, Christians in the past used to count Jesus’ circumcision as one of the mighty works he undertook to secure our salvation. The Prayer Book Litany, a long series of short prayers asking God to have mercy on us, includes the prayer ‘By the mystery of thy holy incarnation; thy holy Nativity and circumcision; by thy baptism, fasting and temptation, God Lord, deliver us!’¹

Jesus’ circumcision has saving power because by it he takes on the obligations of the covenant for us. Jesus is ‘born under the law to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.’ (Galatians 4:4b-5) Jesus’ circumcision marks the beginning of his active obedience, by which he perfectly fulfilled the law by living a sinless life. It also prefigures his passive obedience, as he takes on the curse of the law by dying as a representative and substitute. Jesus’ circumcision marks him out as the offspring of Abraham who inherits all that was promised to him. Thus, in Jesus’ circumcision, Law and Gospel meet and the infant Christ begins his work of salvation to the Jew first and also the Gentile.

New Year’s Day is, traditionally, a day for making resolutions. There’s no harm in that and I’ve made a couple of my own. But Jesus’ circumcision reminds us that in Him we already enjoy perfect righteousness before the Father. He has already kept every last commandment of God on our behalf, he has already suffered the curse of the law in our place, he has already cleansed us and brought us into the people of God. There might be little life hacks that will bring you a healthier or happier 2023, just as there may be new leaves that really should be turned over in repentance and faith. But from the very first day in 2023, we remember that nothing is lacking to satisfy the Father’s justice, no shortcoming in us clouds the face of the Father’s love. Christ has been perfect for us, this year it only remains for us to grow in him.

But that’s not all! Circumcision is also the moment Jesus is formally named (Luke 2:21) Jesus’ name is chosen for him, not by his earthly parents, but by God, whose choice is made known to them by an angel. Jesus is named for something he was born to do. His name means ‘the Lord saves’ and he was given it because ‘He will save his people from their sins’.

God’s choice of the name Jesus reveals at the deepest level who he is. There were other options – God could have given him a name that reminded us of his power, his kindship, his wisdom, his authority, his judgement. But he chose to call him Jesus – the saviour. Saving his people from their sins is so central to Jesus’ life that it isn’t just what he does, it defines who he is. His whole life is one of saving his people from their sins.

Again, this seems an especially appropriate thing to start the year with. Slight mistakes in the calculation of where the year 1 should be notwithstanding, we are entering into the year of our Lord, 2023² Another year that begins in the name of Jesus.

This seems a good time to acknowledge that New Year is not always a happy time. Many people greet the New Year with hope and optimism, or at least gratitude for a fresh start. But sometimes the thought of the new year only evokes foreboding. I remember one year when, at about half eleven at night on New Year’s Eve, I burst into tears on my wife and confessed that all I could see for the coming year was darkness. I was dreading that year, and it did indeed turn out to be very trying.

If you’re in that place today, let me encourage you that for all the difficulties it is another year of the Lord Jesus’ grace. He has come to save his people from their sin. Pour out your heart to him and he will ensure that, whatever the trials of 2023, they will, somehow, serve your salvation. Jesus knows we are sinners, and he knows we need saving. His very name testifies to that.

I pray that God will give you grace and peace throughout 2023.

The image for this post is taken from the Menologion of St Basil II and is in the public domain.

1. The litany goes on to invoke Jesus’ agony and bloody sweat, Cross and passion, precious death and burial, glorious resurrection and ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit as acts by which he saves us. If the liturgical calendar serves one purpose in a way nothing else I know of really can, it is to give us space to celebrate, appreciate and understand each of these saving acts of Jesus, both in its own right and as part of the wider picture of salvation. Interestingly, Jesus’ circumcision has dropped out to the equivalent section of the Common Worship Litany for reasons I would rather not speculate upon. ↩︎
2. I’m actually not that het up about using CE/BCE in secular contexts. I can understand why people who practise a non-Christian faith would want a way to refer to the dating system we all use without having to implicitly concede the truth of Christianity. But in Church contexts it seems entirely appropriate to stick to AD and BC. ↩︎