Hyvää Juhannus!!

 Hyvää Juhannus!!

                We just concluded celebrating Juhannus here in Finland which is Midsummer Festival and more literally the “Festival of St. John” in honor of John the Baptist who according to scripture was Christ’s cousin, born six months prior to him, and had the honor of preparing the way for the Lord and baptizing him.  While few here in the Christian church celebrate the festival in honor of John anymore, it is arguably the second most important holiday in Finland taking a backseat only to Christmas. This is understandable, since the Finns believe that Santa Clause lives here in Finland. In fact this is his first stop on his world journey as he comes to each house on Christmas Eve and knocks on the door to deliver presents to the children. Now that is service!

Pasi and I at the Midsummer Eve Bonfire

                As the weekend came I started thinking about this celebration and had many reflections. The traditions for Juhannus are a mix of Pagan and Christian rituals that go back centuries. One of the traditions is the lighting of huge bonfires on Midsummer’s Eve to ward off evil spirits in preparation for the festival. Fire also has a religious significance in that it is a purifying agent in scriptural terms. But the Bonfires are beautiful as they glow in the twilight of the midnight sun. Another aspect of Juhannus is drinking. It was believed that the more you drink the better the crops will be in the harvest-- and believe me, the Finns do their best to make sure those crops come in strong. Drinking to excess is a national pastime here and Juhannus may be the best example. While most Finns refrain from drinking and driving due to the low DUI level of .05, the midsummer holiday always bring in many deaths due to alcohol abuse. Most of those deaths are from drowning. People go out in their boats on one of the over 158,000 large lakes or in the seas visiting the archipelagos and are so drunk they fall out of the boat and drown. Some may consider this a Darwinian selection process, and yet it is a sad state of affairs. Juhannus also sees the cities become ghost towns as most people head to summer cottages, known as  “Moki’s,” for the holiday. It is amazing to me that 5 million people can disappear into the woods. Most restaurants, bars, shops and services are closed during the weekend. A very strange site to see from an American viewpoint.

Ari and Selma

                Juhannus is a time for friends and family to retreat away from society a bit and reflect on the roots to the wilderness that are commonly held here.  It is a time of celebration but also of contemplation.  While the holiday does not hold deep spiritual meaning anymore I did spend some time thinking about St John the Baptist since this is his holiday. Specifically I thought of John’s questioning of who Jesus was. Here is a man who baptized Jesus in the river Jordan and heard God speak of declaring, “You are my son, whom I love. With you I am well pleased.” (Luke 3:22) Yet later on John begins to question whether he had heard correctly. He even sent his disciples to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” (Luke 7:19)

                What would have been going on that John would question this. His disciples had just returned and told him about Jesus raising a widow’s son from the dead and healing a Centurion’s servant. It could be that John shared others views of what the Christ would be, a powerful conqueror who would free the Jewish people from the oppression of the Romans. Perhaps he was wondering how this would be accomplished by assisting a Roman soldier or saving a widow’s son. Maybe he simply was like us, human and prone to question.

Ville Kouvinen With a Huge Catch

 I find myself in the same circumstances at times and a couple of situations have been bothering me lately and have had me asking questions, much like John.  It has been a rough couple of years personally for me and so there are times that I wonder, God is this really what you have for me or have I heard you wrong?  I have also realized that I am prone to mistakes, big surprise, huh! John I believe was looking for the power of Christ and missed the love of Christ at work. I also make the same mistakes. I trust my own judgment and fail to act in love.  I have been continually reminded of this lately to my chagrin and thankfulness. Two situations come to mind immediately. One of them occurred in this blog a couple of posts ago. I was discussing the development of Finnish football and lamenting what I consider bad for the game in the practice of running up the score on opponents, which happens often in this country at many levels and by many teams.  In that post I used an example from a game I had recently seen.  It was not my intention to denigrate another coach, but, I hurt a friend in that post and I truly regret it. I did not mean to single him out in any way, he has done incredible things for Finnish football and I know he felt badly about what I said. He told me so himself, which I really appreciated, maybe not enjoyed- but I did appreciate it. LOL!  I truly value him as a friend and fellow coach and while we agreed to disagree on some issues that I brought up he is an invaluable part of this community of American Football in Finland.  The reality is that I feel strongly about the development of the game and still believe in the principles I spoke of. However I did not speak with the love that I needed to have for people I care for.

Mackenzie and the offense racked up 809 yards of total offense vs. the Border Knights!

The second incident was a couple of weeks ago during our game vs. the Border Knights. It was an amazing game from a fans perspective and if you want to see a great offensive show the game is still available online at the SAJL site. However as a defensive coach it was also frustrating to watch their offense march up and down the field on us. We had many injuries and had people playing in positions that they had never played. The frustration and desperation got the better of me and I got greedy and made a poor coaching decision. At one point in the second half I opted to go for a 2 point conversion, partly because I saw we were in a scoring fest and I wanted to try to score as many points as possible in every opportunity that we had. I had seen many instances throughout the day where I believed we could have converted a two point conversion, but had not done so.  After scoring I had contemplated it again and decided to do it. However the decision brought confusion to our offense and we did not convert. Mackenzie McGrady, our quarterback, asked me what I was thinking and I tried to explain it but did not do a good job of it. As we talked I realized that a large part of it was my desperation and feelings that we could not stop them defensively. He chastised me for thinking that way, which did not feel good, but was needed. The truth was that I had begun to question my decision making and my ability in managing the defense. I felt ashamed that I had stopped believing in our defense. Fortunately our guys had more faith in themselves than I did and after falling behind 54-41 with 9 minutes left in the 4^th quarter our defense rose up and made a couple of stops allowing our offense to score a few more times and win the game 61-54. The defense held the Knights out on the last play at the one yard line as time ran out to preserve the victory.

Bonfire Near Porvoo

Both of these incidents were deeply humiliating for me as they demonstrated my lack of ability to love. A few days later I read 1 Corinthians 13 in my daily devotional which really helped me see how far away from the goal I am.  However, I can also take comfort in knowing that even though John had sent his disciples to Jesus to question him, Jesus did not chastise John for it. In fact he praised John in front of all those present explaining that “of all those born of women there is none greater than John.” (Luke 7:28)  I know that I constantly fail in my attempts to love others in the way that God loves me. I can only ask forgiveness from those I have failed to love, get up, dust off my pants and keep on trying.  Just like my defense did! And I can only hope that God feels the same way about me that I feel about them, proud and full of love!

Happy Midsummer!

Ship passing during Midsummer Eve!

Jim