Bible Text: Luke 2:21 | Preacher: Pastor Jon Olson | Originally, and in all the ancient service books, January 1 was the octave of Christmas, Octava Domini. Then, as now, however the day was a popular holiday marked by dancing, masquerades and general pagan gaiety. Councils of the church in France, Spain and Italy found it necessary from the fifth century to forbid the participation of the faithful in these celebrations; to order them instead to attend church; and finally set the day as one of fasting, litanies and penance. In 650 it became a holy obligation on which everyone had to attend church.
The association of the day with the circumcision of Jesus depended on Luke 2:21 when, in obedience to the Levitical law, the infant Jesus was taken to the temple on the eighth day for his naming and the fulfillment of ritual ceremonies. This association in the calendar appears to have been first in Gaul. In the ninth century, Roman calendars abandoned the title, Octava Domini, in favor of Circumcisio Domini.
Until the sixteenth century, both the Circumcision and the Name of Jesus were jointly commemorated on January 1, and the title in many Lutheran orders is The Circumcision and the Name of Jesus…
The liturgy of the church makes no reference to the beginning of the civil year on January 1. “Watch night” services are of non-liturgical origin, and represent a latter-day attempt of the church to temper the excesses of New Year’s Eve, just as the Feast of the Circumcision once attempted the same thing for New Year’s Day. (Horn, Edwin T. III, “The Christian Year”, Muhlenberg Press, 1957, pp. 79-80)
Hearing the history of all this is somewhat ironic since Pastor Preus and I decided to hold the commemoration of the Circumcision and the Name of Jesus on New Year’s Eve. This is because we did not think people would be up to attending church on New Year’s Day because of the festivities associated with New Year’s Eve. Keep this in mind as you celebrate the end of 2020 tonight and the beginning of 2021. This evening’s sermon will focus on the Name of Jesus. I will leave it to Pastor Preus, Pastor Richard or whoever I ask next year to preach at Trinity on New Year’s Eve, to focus on His Circumcision.
For most people, the change in the calendar page from one year to the next makes them reflective and hopefully produces a healthy longing for the Gospel. This is truly meet, right and salutary at this time of year because this nostalgia of the past year should also show regret of the past and fear the future. Fear not, however, because a faithful heart that fears the Lord and regrets the past is a good thing. For a faithful heart also desires to be united to the Christ, to be free of this world, to leave behind the desires of the flesh and not pay for its trespasses. For without Christ there is no relief from guilt and worry. You cannot live, you cannot go on at all, without His grace-filled visitation.
For the sake of your very life, you must come often to Him, to receive the strength of your salvation, for without this heavenly food, you grow weak upon the way.
Once while preaching to the people and healing their many sicknesses, our Lord said: “I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint on the way.” Pray also then that Jesus deal with you in the same way, that the Lord would provide for your needs. And He truly has. For it is for this very reason that the Lord has left a pledge and token of Himself in this Holy Sacrament for the consolation of the faithful, to go with them on their way. For in this Holy Supper is sweet refreshment for the soul, and he who eats of Him worthily will share in His eternal glory.
It is indeed necessary for sinful man, who falls and sins so often, who so quickly becomes careless and weak, to renew, cleanse, and intensify the spiritual life through frequent prayer, confession, and the holy reception of His Body and Blood. For the danger is that by staying away too long, a Christian can fall away from God’s holy purpose and the goal of Holy Baptism. It is all too easy to become absorbed and entrapped in sin, all the while risking that the future judgment falls without warning. For the days are truly evil, and from the days of our youth, our senses have been predisposed to do evil and mislead. And without God’s help, we will quickly fall deeper into our sinful flesh and its desires.
But thanks be to God He has given us a Name to call upon in the time of trouble, and He answers. Thanks be to God that He gives his very Self to you. His Holy Communion removes you from the evilness of your sin and the world’s influence. For by the Holy Supper, God confirms the good work He has begun in you. The Eucharist enables you to do good works that please the Lord. And in this holy Supper God Himself joins you to Him and moves you one step closer to the Promised Land. This is why it is a very good thing to have a Divine Service on New Year’s Eve (or Day).
For your God came as a Man and has disclosed to you His Name. He is called Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. He leads you not simply out of slavery and death, but into the Promised Land, into heaven. To cross the Jordan safely on dry ground and enter a land you did not buy or earn. You harvest where you did not plant, not because you are sneaky or a thief, but because the Lord is merciful, and provides a Way.
You and I are the beneficiaries of another Man’s work. And this Man is Jesus the Lord, who saves His people, who joined mankind and faced death and Hell on our behalf, who met the demands of the Law and became a ransom in Himself for the Father, and by His suffering has removed all the Devil’s accusations against us.
But even beyond the greatness of the gift that is the holy Name of “Jesus,’ is the gift that He has a Name at all. For by His Name you have access to Him. You call upon Him and He answers. He has a human Name, not just a verb, not just divine attributes. He has a personal name, like each of us. For at the same time the prohibition against images of the Divine was removed when God took on Flesh and had a face so that we could then imagine Him, and have paintings and statues and so forth, so also when God took on Flesh He granted mankind a more intimate access to Him than ever before.
To know God´s most personal Name is a high, high privilege. For we know more of Who God is than His people of the Old Testament who knew Him in the Tabernacle or Temple by smoke and flame. For God dwelt among us as a Man, in a tent made of skin He tabernacled among us. By His bruised and bloody Body He was put to death and came back to life again, all the while remaining a Man, still one of us with a name. We cannot only imagine what He looks like, since He has a face, but we can know Him as a Man, as our brother, with the name of our ancestor in the faith, with a name we might even give to our own sons, a human name. For He is Joshua.
He is not simply the One-Who-Is, though He is that, but He is the One-Who-Is who saves His people, who wears our flesh, who has revealed Himself now as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the God who is Love, and who puts that fullest and complete of all names, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, upon you and your children and your children’s children, all for your and their eternal benefit.
By the revelation of His Name, we are bold to gather this night to eat His Body and drink His Blood, to call Him Lord Jesus as though He were your Friend as well as your King and your God, for He truly is.
You come then, while all the world parties to forget 2020, you come to remember and to proclaim the death Jesus died, to pray in His Name and call down its blessing upon yourself. For this is no better way to end the old year and bring in the new than to come to Jesus. For by this holy gift you are made to be fruitful in good works and to find delight in this holy banquet that He spreads before you, that you might turn the page this night with the promise that 2021 is His Year and Time as was 2020. For all that you can or ought to desire is in His Holy Name. He is your salvation and redemption, your hope and strength, your honor and glory. His name is Jesus, and year in and year out, He truly makes all things new.