Offered by Father Matthew Dallman for the Parish of Tazewell County on the Solemnity of the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 2017.
The Father of all of creation, of all that is, seen and unseen, has given His only begotten Son, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the holy Name of Jesus. This holy Name is for us the sign of our salvation. And what a wondrous Name Jesus is! Look at all that it includes: Jesus means Lord, both merciful and gracious; a Lord slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness; Jesus means forgiveness and yet firm in right and wrong; Jesus means holiness, yet a Name that demands obedience—that is, demands our deepest listening; it is a Name that means wonderful counselor, Prince of Peace, Mighty God, Everlasting Father. It is a Name that echoes in all the joyful noises made by infants and children. It is a Name that means oil poured out.
The Holy Name of Jesus includes all this, and more, and yet it also transcends our ability to define this Name. When anything is praised, the most truest and profound sense of that praise is the Name Jesus. Jesus is a mystical Name—a Name that changes our wills, a Name that does not destroy who we are, but perfects who we are. This is a Name that works wonders, in whose light we see Light—a Name that counsels us to repentance and the ordering of our lives. This Name, this Jesus! He fought and won against all the forces of evil. This Name, this Jesus! He is the Father and Mother of the world to come, and this world to come will live in endless peace through His Name. A mystical Name above all names.
Each of the major Catholic traditions of the holy Church today give this Holy Day, the first day of the new calendar year, a distinct emphasis. The Church of Canterbury, that is to say, Anglicans, today emphasizes the holy naming of Jesus. The Church of Rome today emphasizes the revealing of Blessed Mary as the Mother of God. Mary had already known intuitively through the angelic Annunciation of Gabriel that his Babe in swaddling clothes is the Son of the Most High, and she knew His Name was to be Jesus; Joseph also knew through an angelic greeting in a dream this Babe’s Name. That lowly shepherds flocked to them in haste and told them they heard the same thing, also from angels, must have thrown both Mary and Joseph into a deep contemplation, indeed that they were a Holy Family; and Luke tells us Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart. To the shepherds, Mary is thereby revealed as the Mother of God. Hence the devout emphasis given by our sister Church of Rome.
The oldest tradition, which used to be the universal pattern for all Catholic traditions, is to celebrate today the Circumcision of Jesus, a moment we hear in our Gospel in these words—“At the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he we conceived in the womb.” Today, the Church of Constantinople—the Eastern Orthodox traditions, also our sisters—continue to celebrate the Circumcision. Why was Jesus circumcised? It was not because he needed to be purified or to prevent Him from sin, for He was the Son of God. He chose to be circumcised to establish solidarity with God’s covenant with Abraham and with his posterity. He chose to faithfully fulfill and conform to divine ordinance, “conform in all respects to the rites and ceremonies of Judaism, to everything hitherto accounted sacred and binding.” (source.) His circumcision proves for us that Jesus is not illusion, no apparition. He is a real person, then a small baby of flesh and blood.
And in this circumcision began His passion, His suffering for our transgressions, for which He lived His whole life. In His circumcision is the first shedding of Precious Blood, the first overshadowing of the Cross. Christ was circumcised to that His Previous Blood would begin to flow to soften the hardest hearts of sinners. We too are circumcised, with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of flesh in the circumcision of Christ, being buried with Him in baptism. May we continually receive our circumcision, which by baptism is of the whole human person and hence a more mature circumcision, and may we receive it through our disciplined prayer life. By grace may we experience the daily circumcision of our hearts.
Indeed this Name is a sign of our salvation—for through it, behold what is revealed: a real person in Jesus who bleeds preciously, yet He is divine; a real Mother in Mary, who gave birth yet remains ever a Virgin; a real man in Joseph, not a father yet a genuine protector. Mysteries abound on this day! Heavenly God, let all them that put their trust in You rejoice; they shall ever be giving of thanks, because You defend them; they that love your Name shall be joyful in You. Amen.
The cover image “The circumcision of Christ, Preobrazhenski monastry, Bulgaria” by Preslav is licensed under CC BY 2.0 / Cropped from original.