The Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, observed on the first of January, commemorates the fulfilment of the Law by the infant Jesus on the eighth day after his birth. According to the Law of Moses, every male child was to be circumcised as a sign of the covenant between God and the seed of Abraham. In submitting to this rite, the Son of God entered into the obligations of the covenant he himself had given, taking upon himself the whole weight of human obligation to God.

The appointed Epistle from Saint Paul to the Philippians names what this willing submission accomplished. Christ, who was in the form of God, emptied himself and took the form of a servant, becoming obedient unto death. Therefore God has highly exalted him and given him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow. The humility of the manger and the knife of circumcision are the beginning of the same story that ends at the throne of heaven.

The appointed Gospel from Saint Luke supplies the precise detail: 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. The name Jesus — meaning the Lord saves — was given at the moment of his first shedding of blood for our sake, pointing forward to the greater shedding that would accomplish what the covenant sign only signified. The Collect prays for the true circumcision of the Spirit: that our hearts and all our members may be mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, and that in all things we may obey God's blessed will.