God said, “Behold, I am going to make a covenant. Before all your people I will perform miracles which have not been produced in all the earth nor among any of the nations; and all the people among whom you live will see the working of the Lord, for it is a fearful thing that I am going to perform with you. Exodus 34:10
A covenant is a Divine promise...sealed with a ritual. In the case of the Abrahamic Covenant the ritual involved circumcision. God said "This is My covenant, which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: every male among you shall be circumcised. And you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between Me".
The promise was fruitfulness, influence, a home...and Divine protection. In return, God demanded unwavering devotion.
Why Circumcision? Cutting the flesh intended to symbolize acknowledgement that none of these blessings could be dependably accomplished through human effort...only by God. Peter Leithart, in his book Delivered from the Elements of the World, says from the beginning, circumcision ritualized the impotence and infertility of flesh. Flesh is not the solution to the human dilemma...flesh is the problem. The obstacle that needs to be removed is flesh itself. Circumcision was a casting-away of flesh that began in infancy. The children of Abraham were marked by a sign of distrust in flesh. At the same time the circumcised renounce flesh, they are entrusted to the life-giving God.
So...a visible sign of subordination and dependence upon God.
As with most things, we humans managed to completely misconstrue the importance of the ritual. We began to believe in the ritual itself rather than the truth to which the ritual pointed. The truth God intended to convey through circumcision is far more personal and intrusive.In Deuteronomy the Israelites are told "The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, and you will love Him with all your heart and all your soul, so that you may live" (30:6).
When Israel strayed from God, Jeremiah said "Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, remove the foreskins of your hearts, O men of Judah and people of Jerusalem. Otherwise, (God's) wrath will break out like fire and burn with no one to extinguish it, because of your evil deeds." (4:4)
It's easy to feel the rituals of our faith bring no real value. We pray, we read scripture, we go to church...and nothing changes. I suggest it is because we are only going through the motions. Until our hearts are broken by the incredible grace of God...until our hearts cannot help but love Him with all our soul and strength...until we humbly kneel before our God in gratitude for His mercy we are simply performing rituals...not sacraments.
This kind of gratitude is marked by an insatiable desire to please God and obey Him. But, every morning, we need let God circumcise our hearts all over again.
The promise is still there...is your heart circumcised?
Live boldly out there today...
