Putting “Happy” Back into Your New Year
At a brit milah (circumcision ceremony) for the infant son of a Messianic Jewish family the mohel[1] astutely observed: “If Jesus really was born on December 25, then New Year’s Day, January 1, celebrates His brit milah and naming!”[2] Now that is an interesting twist on what celebrating the New Year is all about.
The practice of brit milah, literally “circumcision covenant” was given by God to Abraham as a physical sign of His unconditional covenant promises to Abraham and his seed (progeny), through Isaac and Jacob. The brit milah ceremony is so important that should it fall on a Shabbat, it must be performed anyway. Those who practice gematria[3] in the Orthodox Jewish community point out that the numeric value of the word brit is 613, suggesting that its practice carries with it the weight of all the commandments combined.
Tradition aside, the Scriptures teach that each time a Jewish boy is circumcised on the eighth day it is the sign of God’s faithfulness to His promises.
Only after a Jewish boy is so marked physically as one of God’s covenant people does he officially receive his name. This explains why Luke recorded this unusual detail: “And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus (Yeshua), the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb” (Luke 2:21 ESV).
It is easy to imagine the mohel, upon completing the circumcision, chanting this line of liturgy: “Our God and God of our fathers, preserve this child for his father and mother, and his name in Israel shall be called Yeshua ben Yoseph (Jesus the son of Joseph).” Here, more than any other place in the Bible, a name is more than a simple label. “Yeshua” speaks volumes of this Jewish child’s unique nature and mission.
This often-overlooked detail highlights God’s faithfulness in two ways. First, the brit milah itself fulfills the essential requirement that Messiah could come only through Abraham’s physical “seed.” And God’s faithfulness is displayed in the angel-designated name officially bestowed on the eighth day – Yeshua – meaning “ The LORD is salvation.” It is so much more than a name; it is a succinct and infinitely deep revelation of all God accomplishes through His Son.
We do well to reflect on these profound connections, especially during the New Year season. We look forward to celebrating with friends or family, even as we dread the forced revelry of the evening. We exuberantly mark a fresh start by committing ourselves to do better next year, while suppressing the “Groundhog-Day-like-nature” of our failings and life’s hardships. The “Happy” in our New Year celebrations is short lived.
The good news is that we can put the “Happy” back into our New Year, not by force but by our focus. May the start of 2023 find us reflecting on Messiah’s brit milah and rejoicing in God’s faithfulness to His people Israel and to the nations of the earth. May this picture of God’s past faithfulness propel us into the new year confident in seeing more of the same.
Written by Dan, Life in Messiah Board Chair
How might you resolve to add “happy” into your 2023?
Have you ever thought about how Jesus lived a very much Jewish life – from birth (brit milah) to death?
Endnotes:
[1] A mohel is the person who performs Jewish ritual circumcision; in this case he was not a believer in Messiah.
[2] This is not a new observation. In the liturgical calendars of Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholic, Roman Catholic (pre-1960), Lutheran, and some Anglican churches, January 1st is known as the Feast of the Circumcision.
[3] Gematria is the rabbinic system of finding additional meanings and connections between Hebrew words by determining a word’s numeric equivalent. The numeric value of the Hebrew word brit is 613, the same number of commandments in the Torah as enumerated by the rabbis.