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Seriously? Really, God? Circumcision? That's how you wanted to mark Your people as belonging to You by covenant? Not a braid like Anakin Skywalker? Not a brand of an Alpha and an Omega on the shoulder? Not an awl through the ear at the doorpost? None of these, but that? THERE?
Nothing could more clearly illustrate that Your ways are not like our ways. No way we would ever have picked that part of the body to represent Your covenant. And NO WAY we would ever have come up with cutting it!
So what were Your thoughts? Why did You decide on circumcision? Of course I'm sure I could never discover all You had in mind, but I have some thoughts. . .some maybe's.
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Maybe. . .God was showing us how comprehensive His interest in our lives is. With this body part we do both the lowest and the highest of physical activities. We use it both for excretion and for love-making. In the former, we differ not a bit from the lowest of animals in the biological need to eliminate waste. In the latter, we rise above the animals and aspire toward the realms of heaven--ok, not always, but ideally. In union of husband and wife we express and explore the image of God, we delight in the intimacies of eros and agape intermingled, and we foreshadow the union of the Lord and His people at the end of time! God not only combined these two functions, the animalistic and the divine, in one organ--He then chose that organ to use for the mark of His covenant. Maybe in this He was showing us that He has concern for, and He claims rights to, every single aspect of our life, from the meanest to the most majestic.
Maybe. . .God was hinting at the internal nature of salvation. That part of the body is almost always hidden. It is seen by almost no one else. We do so many religious things out where people can see. Maybe God was giving us a clue that it is what others don't see that matters most.
Maybe. . .God was setting up another contrast between the old covenant and the new, another wall to be torn down. Obviously, only males could participate in this mark of the covenant. I wonder how that made females feel? Was it just another taken-for-granted thread in the fabric of their male-dominated society, or was it a specific cause for envy? Was there a connection between the man-mark, sexual union, and the hope of salvation through childbirth? At any rate, in the new covenant there is no male or female. All can be baptized. All are equal in Christ Jesus!
Maybe. . .God was helping with sexual temptation. Would the mark of the covenant have made any difference? The rabbis who wrote the Talmud seemed to think so. They said if a man was reminded by his circumcision of the covenant it would help him avoid sexual sin. Of course, the Talmud isn't always the best source for what God really intended. . .It does make me wonder, though, whether it aided in this way at all. I'm trying to come up with a NT parallel. To sin with the very thing that represented your agreement not to sin, would that be like using torn-out pages of the Bible to light up a doobie? Would it be like going skinny-dipping with your mistress in the baptistry?
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If any of this is on the right track, it's a reminder to me of Your total 360-degree design of life, the universe, and everything (to quote Douglas Adams). Every detail of creation and relationship meshes with hundreds of others. The air we breathe surrounds us but doesn't keep us from moving, provides the oxygen we need but doesn't keep us from seeing (what if air weren't clear?), gives us a metaphor for Spirit and provides the lift for birds and helicopters, dissolves in the water for sea-life and holds water for rainfall. Every detail of the universe is like this, intertwined with countless others. . .and it shows how wonderfully wise You are. . .as does circumcision, I'm sure, if only we can rightly understand it.
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