Johnsmas: Firelight in Briefest Night

As far as unsung holidays go, few seem to me more deserving of a modern revival than the Nativity of St John the Baptist, known to Shakespeare as Midsummer’s Day. John’s is one of only three birthdays commemorated on the Christian liturgical calendar—quite a coup, considering that the other two are Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary.

John the Baptist is a wonderfully wily, irascible figure, offering a truly unforgettable introduction to the New Testament. He’s famous for preaching brimstone in the badlands, baptizing various and sundry questionable characters, wearing coarse camelhair clothing, and sustaining himself on locusts and wild honey.

What’s most important about John, however, is that he serves as Forerunner to the Christ, the prophesied voice crying out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord!” In other words, everything that Jesus does, John does first. John has a miraculous birth; he proclaims the coming Kingdom of God; he gathers a cadre of disciples; he baptizes the repentant; he speaks truth to power; and he is ultimately executed unjustly by the state.

It’s not simply that he spoke prophecy, but that his entire life was a prophecy of Jesus. A sign of this, in Eastern iconography, is that John is the only mortal saint depicted with wings, as though he himself were an earthly angel, a heavenly messenger made flesh.

The reason we commemorate his birth and not simply his death—the Decollation of St John is a different date altogether—has to do with an episode found in Luke’s Gospel, known as the Visitation. Here the pregnant Mary, having just learned from the angel Gabriel that she is to be the Mother of the Lord, visits her kinswoman Elizabeth, now six months pregnant with John the Baptist.

Upon her arrival, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps in recognition of the baby in Mary’s womb, the Holy Spirit here moving from womb to womb; thus is John a prophet even before he has been born. The Church marks the Visitation on 31 May, and John’s birthday on 24 June. By why that particular date?

The Western Church came to believe that Jesus had been conceived on the very same date upon which He later died, a tradition called “the integral age.” Christ died, of course, at Passover, shortly after the spring equinox. Well, nine months after the spring equinox falls the winter solstice, right about 25 December, so there we have Christ’s birth. And if Elizabeth conceived six months before Mary, that would put John’s birth about 24 June.

We have, then, a sacred calendar which mirrors the natural cycle of seasons: John born at the summer solstice, the longest day of the year; and Christ correspondingly born at the winter solstice, the longest night. This fits nicely with John’s famous dictum that “He [Christ] must increase, but I [John] must decrease.” At John’s Nativity, the days begin to dwindle; at Jesus’ birth, they lengthen once again. Light, as it were, is reborn.

“The Nativity of St John the Baptist” tends to be a mouthful, however, so I prefer the northern European appellation Johnsmas. As Jesus’ Nativity is the Christ Mass, or Christmas; and Mary’s Nativity the Mary Mass, or Marymas; so John’s Nativity is the John’s Mass, or Johnsmas. It just rolls nicely off the tongue.

Johnsmas tends to be most celebrated most raucously in northernmost climes, where the summer solstice proves so obvious that the sun barely seems to have set. Scandinavians burn gigantic bonfires, some 130 feet high. Many assume that the bonfire tradition hails from an ancient pagan past, but that doesn’t appear to be true. According to the Center for Nordic Studies at the University of the Highlands and Islands:

In the North of Scandinavia, the turning point of the sun is actually not visible, as the sun is above the horizon continuously for up to nine hundred and sixty hours, depending on how far north you are. Therefore it makes no sense to celebrate the longest day at any particular 24-hour point of that stretch.

Rather, the Johnsmas fires are of a specifically Christian origin:

It was King Olaf Tryggvason who instituted Johnsmas on the 24th of June as a drinking feast to St John in Norway in the year 994. Olaf Tryggvason was one of the kings responsible for the Christian conversion of Norway.

King Olaf was a complicated fellow. To paraphrase one historian of the Viking age, Olaf and his men were deeply devoted to Christ—not big on the Ten Commandments, but deeply devoted to Christ. Nevertheless, he brought the celebration of Johnsmas to the Christian North with fire, ale, and song. I for one can think of no better way to celebrate the glories of God’s good Creation, the ministry of St John the Baptist, and the heralding of Jesus’ own birth now dawning upon the horizon.

Raise a pint and a prayer, and enjoy the height of the light.

It has been an honor serving as your Grand Prelate, Sir Knights. A blessed Johnsmas to all.

In Jesus. Amen.

-Eminent Grand Prelate Sir Knight Ryan Stout