Sign of the Covenant
“The New Year. The future... Yeah ole daddy Earth fixin' to start one mo' trip 'round the sun, an' evvybody hopin' this ride 'round be a little mo' giddy, a little mo' gay...”
— The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), written by Joel & Ethan Coen, and San Raimi
Happy Circumcision of Christ Day! It’s somehow fitting that it falls on New Year’s Day because each of these events cause us to both look back and to look forward. The fact that Jesus was circumcised according to the Covenant that God established with the Hebrews tells us that Jesus does not overturn the Father’s relationship with humanity but is the fulfillment of His promises to it through His chosen people. Jesus fulfills God’s promises; His Covenant is fulfilled in His son. God has been narrating mankind’s story, influencing the events of History through Israel, molding reality bit by bit so that history itself could change. Without the aid of God, mankind’s destiny is fated to be one of pain and suffering, failure, and death. Only within a relationship with the God of all can man reach its fulfillment. Only in God is man’s destiny not futile.
We remember that this day, in the Temple at Jerusalem, was the first time Jesus’s blood was shed for us.
In Jesus, we see God’s love for humanity, not as a distant, impersonal love, but one in which His love for us is so complete that He was willing to become flesh for us. God became man for us but not as some abstract concept but as a man in history, within a particular moment, within a particular community, and with a particular family. Obviously, the context in which God chose to manifest in is hugely important and the fact that He would allow Himself the outward and visible signs of God’s Covenant with His chosen people is of immense importance.
Jesus came into history and everything that proceeded that singular moment was necessary for that moment to occur. He came when He did, where He did because it was the exact right moment in the story, just as He enters into our story at the exact right time. Or perhaps it might be more accurate to say that we enter into His story at the exact right time.
Whatever the case, we look back at a moment in History, one that points forward to His Salvation of humanity, of us, on the Cross but also as the fulfillment of the promises made to Israel, and through them to Creation itself.
Likewise, in marking the New Year we both look back and forward. We can either choose to look at the future with dread or hope. We can look back at the past with regret or thankfulness. The choice is ours.
But the thing to remember is that at the heart of our fulfilment and perfection lay a paradox. Only if we are in a right relationship with God can we achieve our destiny but the truth that is eternally being opened to and experienced by us is the realization that our destiny is our relationship with God. The means and the end are one and the same. Whatever term we use, end, completion, fulfilment, what have you, is a full and complete relationship with God. One in which we become more than we could achieve on our own, more than we have any right to, and in so becoming we are able to more fully experience and express our love of God.
So let us hope for a better year but with the knowledge that it all depends in bettering our relationship with God.