Johnsmas

Propers: The Nativity of St John the Baptist (Johnsmas), AD 2024 B

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Welcome to Johnsmas!—a holiday woefully overlooked on our calendar yet one that well merits our attention. It goes by many names. Shakespeare called it Midsummer. Norwegians call it Sankthans. Finns go with Juhannus. But for the Church it remains the Nativity of St John the Baptist: prophet, priest, and the Forerunner of our Lord.

St John’s is one of only three birthdays upon our liturgical calendar. Oh, there are plenty of martyrs, saints, and apostles. Thousands, in fact, a dozen or so a day. And generally speaking their commemorations fall upon the anniversaries of their deaths—or in some cases the translation of their relics, “translation” here serving more often than not as a polite euphemism for stealing someone’s bones.

Yet these three people are honored at their births: Mary, Jesus, and St John the Baptist. Quite the select list. How then does this guy rate alongside Christ and the Mother of God?

The Hebrew Scriptures prophesy that before the coming of the Messiah a Forerunner would appear, filled with the spirit and power of Elijah; a voice crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord!” Christians hold these Scriptures fulfilled in John, a cousin of Jesus, related through their mothers. According to the Gospel, when the two women met—Mary, pregnant with Jesus, and Elizabeth, pregnant with John—the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leapt for joy in recognition of the baby in Mary’s womb.

Thus is John ordained by the movement of the Holy Spirit from womb to womb. He is called, he is empowered, he is sanctified, even before he is born. His mission begins at that moment: for all his life he will now be the Forerunner of the Christ. Everything that Jesus does, John does first. He is born six months before Jesus, which is why we celebrate now, six months before Christmas.

John goes out into the wilderness before Jesus; calls disciples before Jesus; preaches repentance for the coming of the Kingdom before Jesus; and baptizes sinners in the River Jordan before Jesus. Eventually even John’s death, at the hands of an unjust authority, serves as the signal to Jesus that His own death upon the Cross soon draws nigh. As John preceded Jesus throughout His life, so John also precedes Him into the tomb.

The difference in their ministries is very simple. John prepares the people for the coming of the Messiah, calling for all to repent, because the Kingdom of God draws near; while Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ to whom John forever points, and His coming is nothing less than the Kingdom of God breaking into our world.

“Behold,” cried John, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world! I am not worthy even to untie the thong of His sandal. I have baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with fire, and with the Holy Spirit! And now He must increase, but I must decrease.” And so John, having fulfilled his calling as foretold in the Scriptures, offers up his life, knowing that His Lord will follow Him into death, to raise him and all of humankind up from and out of the Pit.

We have a beautiful illustration of the relationship between Jesus and John reflected in the turning of the natural seasons. Here in the northern hemisphere, Johnsmas falls just after the summer solstice, the longest day of the year; whereas Christmas occurs just after the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. Thus from John’s Eve forward, the light of the Sun steadily wanes—the days ever shortening, the nights growing long—until Christmas, the Nativity of Our Lord, when unto us a Son is born, after which the light continually waxes.

Malachi compares the Forerunner to refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap, purifying the descendants of Levi, the priests, and refining them like gold and silver; the image being one of harshness, yes, but also of blazing light and radiance and power, a consuming fire that brings with it purity and renewal, as does John. So it is the ancient tradition of the Church to light bonfires at Johnsmas, and to burn in these flames old devotional objects—broken Bibles, wrecked Rosaries, anything sacramental, anything holy—in order that we may return them to God, their use having been fulfilled.

In Norway they stack wooden pallets 120 feet high for their Johnsmas fires: an ethereal, ephemeral, terrible sort of skyscraper, reminding one of the Exodus, when God’s people were led by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

But I think what I love most about John is the model he offers for crotchety old preachers. John could be harsh, demanding, single-minded in his pursuit of goodness, truth, and beauty. He told it like it is, spoke truth to power, never could manage to sugarcoat a thing. Yet neither did he ever turn anyone away. He spoke to the agonizing depths of our sins, but this was always followed by the proclamation that another was coming, one greater was coming, and that when the Lord came forth, no power on earth, nor in heaven, nor in hell, could hope to stand against the might of His mercies.

Of course, John the Baptist was in fact a truly righteous soul, whereas preachers are all too-often  only self-righteous. We’re less like John, more like the brood of vipers. But even in this we have hope: because it isn’t about us. John knew that better than anyone. John knew that all the fires of his righteous indignation were as nothing before the life-giving mercies of Jesus Christ.

It’s not the clergy’s Church. It never was. We were only ever stewards. For all of our self-importance, all the works we think we’ve wrought, we remain blessedly unworthy even to untie the thong of Jesus’ sandal. He must increase, and we must decrease. Only then do we point to the true Kingdom of God. Only then do we point to the Christ: the Lamb of God, the Light of the world, the Word made flesh.

There is a fearless and fearsome joy in living our lives for Jesus, whatever our callings may be. There is true and glorious freedom in confessing that we cannot hold a candle to Him, any more than a match could outshine the sun. And so we offer up our lives simply to make His paths straight, and in so doing we become whom we were always meant to be: prophets and priests, kinsmen and cousins, forerunners and followers of Jesus Christ our Lord.

May the fires of St John burn within us—the fires of Christ’s own Holy Spirit purifying, refining, transforming and uplifting, bearing us aloft to God, with our wickedness burned away, and our raiment shining brighter than the sun.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This homily will be preached at the Finn Creek chapel for the museum’s 2024 Johnsmas service. It is a reworking of a homily that I previously preached in 2018.

Pertinent Links

RDG Stout
Blog: https://rdgstout.blogspot.com/
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St Peter’s Lutheran
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Nidaros Lutheran
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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@nidaroschurch6026