Collect for Circumcision of Christ (1928 BCP)

Collect for Circumcision of Christ (1928 BCP) is the collect appointed in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer for "The Circumcision of Christ" on January 1. It prays the mystery named in the appointed Gospel: the child born at Christmas is circumcised on the eighth day and receives the name Jesus. The collect therefore joins Christ's obedient submission to the law, his saving name, and the Church's petition for the "true circumcision of the Spirit."

Text of the Collect

ALMIGHTY God, who madest thy blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the law for man; Grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit; that, our hearts, and all our members, being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed will; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The collect begins with the Father's act: God "madest thy blessed Son to be circumcised." The phrase is not a bare historical notice. It confesses that the Son who did not need purification entered Israel's covenant sign and the discipline of the law "for man." The next clause, "and obedient to the law for man," explains why the collect is placed in the Christmas cycle. The incarnate Son assumes not only human nature but also the human condition under God's law.

The petition asks for "the true circumcision of the Spirit." That phrase moves from the outward rite to inward conversion. The collect identifies the needed work in concrete terms: hearts and members are to be mortified from "worldly and carnal lusts," so that the faithful may obey God's blessed will. Its final phrase, "through the same thy Son," keeps the prayer Christological. The Church asks for spiritual circumcision through the Son whose own circumcision manifests his obedience and saving mission.

Appointed Epistle and Gospel

The 1928 American book appoints Philippians ii. 9 for the Epistle. This differs from the older English and early American use of Romans iv for the day, and it makes the Holy Name and obedient salvation especially prominent:

GOD also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

The Epistle supports the collect in two directions. First, it interprets the name Jesus as the name before which every knee bows and every tongue confesses Christ's lordship. Secondly, it joins Christian obedience to divine grace: believers are commanded to "work out" salvation because God works in them "to will and to do." The collect's request for mortified hearts and obedient members is therefore not moral self-improvement detached from grace. It is the life God works in the baptized through Christ.

The appointed Gospel is St. Luke ii. 15-21. It begins with the shepherds' response to the Nativity and ends with the eighth-day circumcision and naming:

AND it came to pass, as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them. And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

Luke gives the collect its narrative order. The shepherds hear, go, see, publish, and return glorifying God. Mary keeps and ponders. Then the child is circumcised and named Jesus. The collect's clauses follow that Gospel logic: the Church contemplates the child, confesses his covenant obedience, receives his saving name, and asks that the same saving work reach inwardly to heart and members.

Spiritual Circumcision and Obedience

The collect's central petition is illuminated by another 1928 propers text, the Epistle for the Fifteenth Sunday after Trinity. Galatians vi sets outward circumcision and uncircumcision below the new creation in Christ:

But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.

This passage prevents a merely antiquarian reading of January 1. The Church does not pray for the return of the old rite. It prays for the reality to which the old sign pointed: a new creation, crucifixion to the world, and peace upon the Israel of God. The collect names that reality as "the true circumcision of the Spirit" and describes its visible fruit as obedience to God's will.

The 1928 Litany also keeps Christ's circumcision among the saving events by which the Church asks deliverance:

By the mystery of thy holy Incarnation; by thy holy Nativity and Circumcision; by thy Baptism, Fasting, and Temptation, Good Lord, deliver us.

The Litany shows that the collect's theology is not isolated. Circumcision is prayed with the Incarnation, Nativity, Baptism, Fasting, and Temptation as part of the one redemptive obedience of Christ. The collect then applies that obedience to the faithful by asking for inward mortification and outward conformity to God's will.

Prayer Book History

Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere place the feast within the doctrinal movement of the Church year:

The first, from Advent to Trinity, is designed to commemorate the life of Christ on earth; and the several particulars of his life are celebrated in their order,-His incarnation, nativity, circumcision, manifestation to the Gentiles; His doctrine and miracles, His baptism, fasting, and temptation; His agony, His cross, His death, His burial, His resurrection, His ascension; and the mission of the Holy Ghost.

That summary explains why the collect belongs directly after Christmas and before Epiphany. It marks a distinct event in the incarnate life of Christ, but one event in an ordered sequence: nativity, circumcision, manifestation, and then the wider revelation of the Son's doctrine and works.

Procter and Frere also give a specific historical account of the Circumcision proper:

The Circumcision has acquired more distinction in the Prayer Book than it had before in the Latin services. Originally regarded as the Octave of Christmas, its service remained unaltered when the title was charged and consequently there was nothing in the old service except the brief Gospel (S. Luke ii. 21) which bore upon the Circumcision. In 1549 a new Collect was written and a special Epistle was appointed bearing upon the subject, while the old Gospel was enlarged by the prefixing of six additional verses. The festival thus commemorates the obedience of Jesus Christ to the law in the fulfilment of a perfect righteousness.

The 1549 collect shows the English Reformation form from which the later wording descends:

ALMYGHTIE God, whiche madeste thy blessed sonne to be circumcised, and obedyente to the law for man; Graunt us the true circumcision of thy spirite, that our hertes, and al our membres, being mortifyed from al worldly and carnal lustes, may in al thinges obey thy blessed wil; through the same thy sonne Jesus Christ our Lorde.

The official Church of England text of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer preserves the same collect and the older Romans iv Epistle. Its closing rubric also shows the inherited use of the proper in the days before Epiphany:

The same Collect, Epistle, and Gospel shall serve for every day after unto the Epiphany.

The 1928 American propers retain the collect and Gospel setting, but appoint Philippians ii. 9 instead of Romans iv. That change turns the reader's attention from Abraham's circumcision as a sign of faith to the name Jesus and the confession that "Jesus Christ is Lord." The inherited collect still asks for spiritual circumcision, but the American Epistle makes the Holy Name and obedient sanctification stand out with special clarity.

Anglican Interpretation

Lancelot Andrewes connects Christ's circumcision with Galatians iv: the Son is made under the law in order to redeem those under the law. His interpretation directly supports the collect's phrase "obedient to the law for man":

And when did He this? When was He "made under the Law?" Even then when He was circumcised. For this doth St. Paul testify in the third of the next chapter, "Behold, I Paul testify unto you whosoever is circumcised," factus est debitor universae Legis, "he becomes a debtor to the whole Law." At His circumcision then He entered bond anew with us; and in sign that so He did, He shed then a few drops of His blood, whereby He signed the bond as it were, and gave those few drops then, tanquam arrham universi effundendi, "as a pledge or earnest" that "when the fullness of time came," "He would be ready to shed all the rest;" as He did.

Andrewes then draws together the Nativity and the Circumcision as two aspects of Christ's saving union with humanity:

This day, Verbum caro factum, "the Word made flesh;" that day, "Him that knew no sin, He made sin," that is, made Him undertake to be handled as a sinner, to be "under the Law," and to endure what the Law could lay upon Him. And so now the thing sent is full; and fully sent, because made; and fully made, because made once and twice over; fully made ours, because fully united to us. "Made of a woman," as well as we; "made under the Law," as deep as we; both ex muliere and sub Lege. So of our nature "of a woman," that of our condition also "under the Law." So, fully united to us in nature and condition both.

Andrewes is useful because he does not reduce the feast to the child's naming alone. The name Jesus belongs to the one who has taken up the law's obligation for humanity. The collect follows the same pattern: first Christ is circumcised and obedient for man; then Christians ask for the Spirit's inward work so that they may obey God's will in him.

Percy Dearmer gives a broader Anglican reason for reading the collect, Epistle, and Gospel together rather than treating the collect as an isolated devotional sentence:

Now the Prayer Book is full of Holy Scripture, and it is the great link which the ordinary Englishman has between our own age and the age when the last book of the Bible was written. It carries on for us the Christian Revelation from the first century to the present day, and it gathers for us gems of Christian prayer and praise from the centuries that lie between.

The Collect for the Circumcision illustrates Dearmer's point. It compresses Luke's eighth-day Gospel, Philippians's Holy Name confession, Galatians's language of being made under the law, and Paul's doctrine of new creation into a public prayer. Its theology is therefore both historical and pastoral: Christ obeys the law for man, and the Church asks that his Spirit cut away disordered desire so that heart, body, and will may be ordered to God.

Use in Worship and Catechesis

In worship, the collect is appointed for January 1 and may be read with the 1928 Epistle from Philippians ii and Gospel from St. Luke ii. Its clauses can be taught in sequence. "Circumcised" points to the eighth day in Luke and to Christ's real entrance into Israel's covenant life. "Obedient to the law for man" points to the Son made under the law for redemption. "The true circumcision of the Spirit" points to inward renewal, not external confidence. "Hearts, and all our members" teaches that grace reaches desire, thought, speech, bodily action, and public conduct. "Obey thy blessed will" joins the collect to Philippians ii: God works in the faithful both to will and to do.

The collect is therefore a compact New Year prayer without becoming a secular New Year reflection. It begins with Christ's first blood-shedding and naming, passes through the Spirit's inward mortification of sin, and ends with obedient life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Collects Epistles and Gospels (1928 BCP)
• Church Calendar (1928 BCP)
• Christmas in the 1928 BCP
• Collect for Christmas Day (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Sunday after Christmas Day (1928 BCP)
• Collect for Second Sunday after Christmas Day (1928 BCP)
• Holy Communion (1928 BCP)
• The Litany (1928 BCP)

External Links

• The 1928 Book of Common Prayer: The Collects, Epistles and Gospels
• The Litany in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer
• The 1549 Book of Common Prayer: Christmas and Circumcision propers
• Church of England, 1662 Book of Common Prayer: The Circumcision of Christ
• Francis Procter and Walter Howard Frere, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, chapter XIII
• Lancelot Andrewes, Nativity Sermon IV on Galatians iv. 4-5
• Percy Dearmer, The Prayer Book: What It Is and How We Should Use It