A Little Off the Top Please!

The procedure known as circumcision goes way back. Many people attribute the history of the circumcision back to an agreement between God and Father Abraham, the patriarch of the Jewish people. There are some however who would argue that there were African communities performing circumcisions long before Abraham. My goal isn't to debate or establish that fact one way or the other. My focus is merely on the procedure as it originated with Abraham, and more specifically why in the world would God even suggest such a thing.

As a child growing up in a Christian home, I often heard about and read about Abraham, and his relationship with God. I always found the stories of how his faith was tested to be quite interesting. But even then the one thing that never sat quite right with me was the whole circumcision thing. Most of the time, my questioning of the matter would produce answers like He's God He can do whatever He wants, but even as a kid that was kind of hard to swallow as everything else God did seemed to have an order or a reasoning behind it, even though most of the time the people involved didn't seem to understand or even agree with His reasoning.

As time went on I just stopped asking and filed my questions away, that is until my own son was born, and it was time for him to pay a visit to the little guillotine himself. Once again I found myself wondering about God's original intentions for the supposedly sacred nip tuck. was it like some suggest, to discourage sexual activity by removing the skin and thereby limiting a brothers sexual pleasure? Maybe it was like other suggest , to purify men who were dirty little sex driven deviants. (Maybe it was the equivalent of a heavenly recall, in an attempt to correct an unsightly design flaw.) None of the reasons or suggestions I heard made sense to me. After a little bit of digging and a stepping outside of my "western way" of thinking, I began to see that maybe it wasn't as weird as it seemed and that there indeed some common sense reasoning behind it.

After looking closely I began to pinpoint that the main theme in the story between God and Abraham was one of covenant. Now covenant is a strange word to most of us here in the western world. A covenant is a promise, or a binding agreement. Here in the west however, that word has little meaning to us, we need covenants to protect us from our covenants. We break our promises and agreement as easily and frequently as breaking the seal on a jar of peanuts.

At one point and time, covenants were immensely binding, in fact when a covenant was made between parties, the breaking of the covenant meant death to the one who broke it. Most of the time these covenants involved blood. Typically the parties involved would hold a ceremony before witnesses. During this ceremony the parties making the agreement would exchange a personal item, swear the conditions of the covenant in the presence of witnesses, they would then make an incision in their wrists and then grab each others forearms, bringing the two wounds together causing the blood from them to mingle.

In essence they were declaring that we are now of the same blood. Many people are unaware that the phrase, "blood is thicker than water" is derived from a covenant phrase that stated "blood is thicker than milk" meaning the blood mixed during a covenant ceremony was even stronger than the biological ties between siblings who had nursed on the same mother's milk. (I'm pretty sure that the thought of dying was a great motivator for keeping the covenant)

It is my understanding that sometimes the parties involved in the covenant process would add some sort of ground dirt or powder to the wound in order to produce a well pronounced scar or a covenant scar. That scar combined with the item or crest exchanged during the ceremony signaled to the observer that this person was in covenant with someone.

This covenant agreement was not without it's benefits, for instance one party of the covenant may have been great at farming and agriculture, but lousy when it came to defending themselves, by striking up a covenant agreement with someone who could fight, but was unable to farm or feed themselves, both parties could then thrive and succeed with each other's help.

Although the covenant agreements were strong, over time people began to treat them much like we do now. Covenant parties became known for displaying or "flashing" their covenant scars and exploiting the benefits of being in "covenant." Families would exploit their new economic status when they cut covenant with other families who were wealthier. Former cowards would exploit their covenant status, taking advantage of the fact that no one would bother them for fear of retaliation from their covenant partners, and in some cases the former cowards would become became bullies themselves. The attention began being placed more on having this "covenant scar" than on filling the requirements and conditions of the covenant. These scars were displayed with pride and "flashed" everywhere.

So how did I get from circumcision to here and how does it relate? It's simple, when God called Abraham to cut a covenant with Him, but He wasn't interested in a covenant built on an outward display. He was looking for someone who would trust Him enough to enter a true covenant agreement, an exchange; what's your's in mine and what's mine is now your's. I also think that He was well aware of man's tendency to "flash" his covenant scar. God didn't want His covenant agreement to be one that was identifiable through the flashing of a scar, He wanted it to be displayed through relationship and performance of the covenant rules. So when the time came to perform the covenant ceremony with Abram (Abram became Abraham after the covenant agreement) God changed the location of the covenant scar to a place that man wouldn't be so quick to flash (at least not during those days) The only way someone would be able to know that a person was in a covenant relationship with God would have been by their behavior, when they actually lived by the covenant agreement, not by a visible scar.

Today the circumcision is no longer a requirement to enter a covenant relationship with God, however the condition is still the same, one can not demonstrate their covenant relationship with God through the flashing of their covenant scars or by the collecting and displaying of their religious relics, or even by their titles and religious affiliations. Although many still carry out the practice of circumcision , it is no longer a mandate or a conditional requirement for relationship with God.

The circumcision is no longer an issue with me anymore, the only thing thing I wonder about now is what sort of anesthetic did Abraham use?