Once upon a time, circumcision was a sign of God’s people; but now the cross has changed all that. Not only is God’s family much larger than imagined, but the cross ushers in new creation!
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We live in a very different world than the one that existed 20 years ago. Perhaps one of the biggest changes is our use of technology.
Computers, the internet, and even social media sites have drastically changed the way communicate.
No longer do we sit down to write letters, but instead, we pull out a device the size of a deck of cards and more powerful than the spaceship that took us to the moon, and we start typing away.
I remember when I got my first e-mail account. I had just left home and had become a freshman at the University of Minnesota.
As a student, I was automatically assigned an e-mail address. In fact, the U made a big deal about it, telling us that all official correspondence was going to come by our university e-mail account and it was our duty to regularly check it.
At that time, I wasn’t sure if was allowed to use it for personal e-mails, so I also created a Hotmail account.
Since then, I believe I’ve had at least 7 different e-mail addresses – between personal accounts, work accounts, and school accounts.
But there’s one thing that hasn’t changed. If I wanted to say something important, or if I wanted my message to stand out, then I didn’t send my message by e-mail. Instead, I sent my message the old fashioned way – US Post – with a handwritten message.
Paul’s Personal Touch
In today’s epistle lesson, St. Paul does the same thing.
He wants the last few lines of his message to really pop, so he personally grabs the pen and ends his letter to the Galatians.
See with what large letters I am writing to you with my own hand. (Galatians 6:11 RSV)
This may sound strange to us. Paul didn’t have e-mail, and this is his letter, so wasn’t the whole thing written by him?
Nope.
In the ancient world, it was common for people of great status – such as this great teacher, Paul – to have scribes, or a school of people, help him compose his letters.
In fact, they may have had quite a bit of say in the composition process (this has been put forth as one thesis as to why some of the letters of Paul “sound” a bit different than other ones).
Nonetheless, at the end of Galatians, Paul decides the ending is important. He wants to go out with a bang, so he grabs the pen and finishes it himself.
This is, perhaps, one of the clearer articulations of the good news. It is the cross, not circumcision or the Law, that brings about new creation. And, yes! this is what the cross does – usher in a new reality, a new creation.
Poetically Explaining New Creation
This short little section, verses 11 through 16, forms a particular poetic structure. For those literature nerds out there, it’s called a chiasm. All this really means is that the second half of the section (verses 14 – 16) mirrors the first half.
Well, I guess I should say it contrasts the first half rather than mirrors it.
This contrast is very important. It’s Paul’s way of saying: through the cross, God is becoming King, new creation is beginning, and the old is passing away, carrying no value.
But God does all this in a completely unexpected way.
So, let’s rearrange what he says, putting the contrasts next to each other and discover how it all works out.
Circumcision is a Mark of Old Creation, Not New Creation
It is those who want to make a good showing in the flesh that would compel you to be circumcised…(Galatians 6:12 RSV)
and
For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. (Galatians 6:15 RSV)
The contrast is between compelling a male to be circumcised on one hand, and circumcision is meaningless to those in the Messiah on the other hand.
Circumcision, originally given to Abraham by God as a sign of the covenant, was an outward sign that a male was a part of the family. He was a part of the in-crowd.
The Jewish-Christian Galatians were arguing that trust in the faithfulness of the Messiah wasn’t enough. Converts needed to go through this ancient rite.
Paul says that’s not so. The cross brings about a new reality and in light of this, circumcision is shallow and trivial. It is a mark of the old world, which is reborn in light of the cross.
Christians Share in the Life of the Messiah and are New Creations
Moving along, the next contrast is this one:
[one is circumcised] …in order that they may not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. (Galatians 6:12 RSV)
And
Henceforth let no man trouble me; for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus. (Galatians 6:17 RSV)
Here, Paul contrasts two different types of marks. The mark of circumcision is an easy way to avoid persecution – both from Roman authorities who valued the ancient nature of Judaism and from Jews themselves.
But, lacking the “mark of circumcision,” one has opened themselves up to a different kind of mark: the marks of Jesus on your body.
What does he mean by this? Well, he means the marks done to him from physical harm because he’s preaching Christ crucified.
…but as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, tumults, labors, watching, hunger; (2 Corinthians 6:4-5 RSV, see also 2 Corinthians 1:8-9; 4:8-11).
In this way, Christians have been crucified with Christ and share not only in his death but also his resurrection; a resurrection that makes one a “new creation” and heir to a new world.
So, if it’s bodily marks that you want, the only ones that count are those suffered for the Messiah.
The Cross is the Path to New Creation
This leads us to our last contrast.
For even those who receive circumcision do not themselves keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may glory in your flesh. (Galatians 6:13 RSV)
And
But far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:14 RSV)
For those who wanted the sign of family membership to be circumcision, they wanted to boast in that sign. “Look at me – I’ve got the outward sign!”
But Paul reverses all of this. We’ve done nothing that’s worthy of boasting. If we boast about anything, it shouldn’t be anything we’ve done or any marks we bear.
Instead, if we want to boast, it should be about how Jesus the Messiah was put to death. How, out of this, new creation was born. How Jesus’ resurrection was the first sign of this, and how this spirit-given life wells up in those who follow the Messiah.
It is the cross, not circumcision, that is the sign of all of this.
New Creation is what Matters.
One of my favorite theologians and top New Testament scholar of our day, N.T. Wright, sums all this up very well,
With the cross of Jesus the old world was born and the new one is promised. How then can anyone who has glimpsed Jesus as the crucified Messiah want to cling to the values, the identity-markers, the way of the life of the old world that has already been pronounced dead on the cross? What matters is neither circumcision nor uncircumcision – neither the marks in the flesh of the Jew nor the absence of such marks in the Gentile. What matters is that God has unleashed upon the world his own new creation, and through the gospel of Jesus invites all to share equally in its blessings, its new life, its promises for the future. (Paul for Everyone: Galatians and Thessalonians [Louisville, KY: Westminster and John Knox Press, 2004], pg. 82)
In other words, the markers of identity put up by humans are meaningless. Through the Messiah, God has reached out and embraced the entire world. He has filled it with his grace. He has invited us to sit and eat of his meal.
The mark of our faith is the presence of joy and the spirit.
The mark of our faith is our hope and the awaiting Christ’s return to complete this new creation project.
Until then, we live boasting only in the cross of the Messiah and we willingly bearing the marks of Jesus.
P.S. Celebrate New Creation with the Orthodox Church, which has proclaimed the Good News for 2,000 years!
I now invite you to enter deeper into the mystery of Christ with the Orthodox Church!
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