Happy New Year - Aliens - The Circumcision and Naming of Jesus Christ

World's longest and totally random title for a blog post contender! :) So Happy New Year dear blogfriends.

Well, last night we woke the girls up at midnight as we had promised. Squidge was upset that the moon wasn't actually blue. My Mum and Dad rang to wish us Happy New Year and to ask us if we could see the strange red lights in the sky. So we all went outside. It was ethereal. Amongst the fireworks red lights floated eerily across the sky. "It's aliens", I said, as a joke, and the girls ran inside screaming. We found them huddled terrified on the sofa. I set them right, poor little mites, lol. The lights were some kind of firework lanterns with little parachutes. They were floating from the hills behind the village. So pretty.

It's now eight days since Christmas Day (Christmas Day is counted as Day 1). In the life of Christ this is the day that He was circumcised and officially named. His name means YAHWEH saves, He is the great I AM.

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On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise him, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he had been conceived.
Luke 2: 21 (NIV)

Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him. Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.
Romans 4:8-14 (NIV)

Almighty God,
whose blessèd Son was circumcised
in obedience to the law for our sake
and given the Name that is above every name:
give us grace faithfully to bear his Name,
to worship him in the freedom of the Spirit,
and to proclaim him as the Saviour of the world;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever. (BCP)

Jesus, the Name above all other names.


p.s. Dr Who's on tonight! David Tennant's last Dr episode!!