Midsummer

In the northern hemisphere we’ll be celebrating midsummer this week and in Estonia, where I live, the skies never get really dark.

Estonians call the midsummer festival ‘Jaanipäev’ (St John’s day), but, despite the name, few Estonians make the connection between the longest day and St John. The summer solstice was a pagan festival long before the Christians took it over and dedicated it to John the Baptist. Just as the Church renamed the winter solstice ‘Christmas’, so too was midsummer christened ‘St John’s day’.

St John’s day was an apt name for the old festival, because after 24 June the days are growing shorter again. John the Baptist was a major figure at the time of Jesus with his own following of disciples. The gospel writers seem to have been embarrassed by the fact that John baptized Jesus and take some trouble to explain why that happened. The last of the four gospels quotes John the Baptist’s words about Jesus: ‘He must become greater; I must become less.’

Humbling or ‘becoming less’ is a spiritual ambition of most religious believers, Christian or not. Buddhist practice in particular, aims to diminish the rôle of the ego by mindfulness.  The problem however, is that even a ‘spiritual’ ambition tends by nature to be egotistical.

The Christian solution to this dilemma is to grow less, not by trying to do so, but by turning away from self towards Christ. It’s not our efforts that may change us: it’s the love of Christ and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. As the first letter of St John puts it ‘We love because he first loved us’.

(fr) Stiiv Knowers, retired Anglican priest living in Tallinn

22 June 2025