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Mettle Maker #336
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ONE METTLE DRILL FOR ALL PROGRMS: JOURNAL REVIEW. It's that time of the year again -- time for your yearly journal review. You don't have to read every entry unless you want to -- It's your call -- but something more than a mere skim is needed in order to really glean any cognitive insight. That insight can be be introspective, extrospective, retrospective, or prospective. It breaks down like this: how do you know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been? How do you know who are and who you want to be if you don’t know who you’ve been in the last year? You need the perspective a journal review provides. You should know that journaling is the cornerstone of all Heritage Arts programs — so get there! Interested in a free fitness, martial arts, or outdoor skills distance learning program? Check out our free programs here.
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Homily for the Circumcision and Naming of Christ, Jan. 1st, 2023 – Archdeacon Mitch
Readings: Num 6:22-end, Ps 8, Gal 4:4-7, Lk 2:15-21
Luke 2:15-21 World English Bible
When the angels went away from them into the sky, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem, now, and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 They came with haste and found both Mary and Joseph, and the baby was lying in the feeding trough. 17 When they saw it, they publicized widely the saying which was spoken to them about this child. 18 All who heard it wondered at the things which were spoken to them by the shepherds. 19 But Mary kept all these sayings, pondering them in her heart. 20 The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, just as it was told them.
21 When eight days were fulfilled for the circumcision of the child, his name was called Jesus, which was given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
God, the ground of all being, the source and establisher of creation, has no gender. Isn’t it strange then, that he refers to himself as Father (Ex 4:22-23 for example) and we call him Father? And that he decides to enter into his creation as a male? Why does God approach us as a male rather than female? And why has the circumcision of infant Jesus been deemed important enough to warrant a feast day?
We cannot know the mind of God, but we can suspect that God came as a man for a very pragmatic and practical reason: positive, healthy father figures are central to strong communities and societies. Boys are particularly vulnerable. Ninety percent of all crime is committed by males, and almost ninety percent of them are fatherless. How many men and boys have chosen to be better fathers and better sons by emulating the divine scheme? But this issue cuts across sexes. More than 4 out of 5 youths in prison come from fatherless homes, and fatherless children are six times more likely to life in poverty and to commit criminal acts. It’s impossible to know how many fatherless girls and boys have taken comfort in knowing they had a father in heaven, or how much pain and suffering have been alleviated by God’s simple choice to present himself as a Father to the world.
Like all Hebrew boys, the Son of God came to be circumcised and named. And for a human male to have the foreskin of his penis cut off is a huge and humbling step, literally and symbolically. In this ritual, ego and masculinity are literally trimmed down to size. But this too cuts across the sexes. Deuteronomy 30:6 reads, “The LORD, your God, will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you will love the LORD, your God, with your whole heart and your whole being, in order that you may live.” And we read in Jeremiah 4:3-4, “For to the people of Judah and Jerusalem, thus says the LORD: Till your untilled ground, and do not sow among thorns. Be circumcised for the LORD, remove the foreskins of your hearts, people of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; Or else my anger will break out like fire, and burn so that no one can quench it, because of your evil deeds.”
This is why St. Paul says in Romans 2:28-29 “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men, but from God.” The Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, sets an eternal example of the circumcision of the heart, humbling himself to enter into our humanity.
In Genesis, God begins creation on the first day of existence itself by declaring “let there be light.” He completes his creation in six days, and on the seventh he rests. God’s only Son, the Light of the World, is born on Christmas, the dawning of the first day of a new creation. On the eighth day, his Son accepts his circumcision. This is the historical event dated 1/1/1 – the first day, of the first month, in the first year – the event that resets the clock of all humanity and begins our every new year in Christ.
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