Birthday of St John the Baptist : Homily / Sermon

‘What will this child turn out to be?’ they wondered. And indeed the hand of the Lord was with him. (Luke 1:56)

In the novel Fatherland, the author Robert Harris tells a tale set in an imaginary 1960s Europe in which the Nazis rule victorious. In the background of the novel are arrangements being made for the celebration of Hitler’s 60th birthday: a national festival and celebration of all that is great (an ugly) of Nazi dominance, ruthlessness and cruelty. It is a celebration of the Leader, and the cult of his personality.

By contrast, in the Church’s calendar, when we remember and celebrate so many different persons, heroes of the faith, examples of human greatness, there are only three persons whose birthdays feature at all: those of Our Lord, Our Lady and St John the Baptist.

In fact, in the whole of scripture there is mention of only one birthday celebration, deep in the Old Testament that of Pharaoh, and the first Christians were generally against the celebration of birthdays, as they were seen to be too closely associated with the pagan world. They disliked them because they were celebrations, indulgences, of the self - usually just prerogatives of the rich and powerful, occasions to lavish gifts, honour and praise upon those who required it of others.
For them, and in many Christian cultures now, it is the feast day of the patron saint, the Name day, which is important, not the Birth Day. In the modern world our date of birth is an important piece of data that gives us our identity, but until relatively recently people may not even have known their exact date of birth. Saints' days are usually on the day of their death, their entry into heaven, so today's feast is almost unique.

So why does the Birthday of St John the Baptist have such an important place?

Well first, perhaps, because it is an important account in St Luke's Gospel. We have the story of Elizabeth and Zechariah, and the account in today's Gospel of his naming, and the loosing of Zechariah's tongue.

But more important than the Gospel account, is its significance. He is the one, after Our Lady, who first bears witness to Christ. While still in the womb, he leaps in worship of Our Lord. And later, at the banks of the Jordan, he recognises him, and says "Behold the Lamb of God, Behold him who takes away the sins of the world". He prepares a way for Christ, gathering followers who will become His apostles.

And at his birth, he breaks convention, giving voice to an old and holy man, his father, who had been dumbstruck, by the news of his conception, and taking a name, John, new to his family, so that he may announce a new age.

His birthday is not a celebration of John himself, as our Birthdays might be, as the birthday of Pharaoh was, and certainly as the the fictional birthday in Fatherland is, no, it is a celebration of what he has come to do. He points not to himself, to his own importance, to his own honour, but to the one who is to follow him.

There is nothing wrong with our own birthday celebrations, of course, but in all of them, we should celebrate not ourselves, our glory, our supposed greatness, but instead be thankful to the one who had made us, who had given us life, and to who we too should bear witness.