Holy Name B > Psalm 8 > Psalm of the Circumcision

Psalm 8 (NRSV)
Psalm 8 RCL context (BCP)

I've been thinking a lot about circumcision this week. You know, the removal of the penis's foreskin.

What? Is something wrong? What does penis alteration have to do with Psalm 8?

Well, that's what I've been wondering.

The Feast of the Holy Name is an alteration of what was originally the Feast of the Circumcision.

Jews were circumcised eight days after their birth, so it's no surprise that eight days after Christmas, the liturgical Jesus finds himself circumcised and named (Luke 2:21).

The name "Jesus," the one that -- in the terms of the psalm -- is "exalted . . . in all the world" (1) means "Savior." But Jesus is also referred to as Emmanuel, or God with us. (This is not the Holy name, but it is a name by which Jesus is called.)

Here we see the God made flesh who is one of us and yet is superatively set apart.

5 "What is man that you should be mindful of him?"

Jesus was mindful of humankind. He took our nature and the Jewish circumcision. He was made flesh, and that very flesh was cut, scourged and crucified.

Jesus was incarnate here on this earth. He breathed the same air, heard the same sounds and saw the same stars.

These stars in 4 make the Psalmist ask, "what is man" in 5.

Jesus, however, is fully God, fully man.

The Christ-child stood at Mary's knee,
     His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
     And all the stars looked down.

-G.K. Chesterton

The Incarnation is humbling.