Evening Prayer

The Evening, what is it for? We might ask, but I don’t think we often ask that question. What is it for? We may think that an evening is simply one of those things that is. That an evening has no purpose other than what we ascribe to it, and certainly with the invention of electric lights, we can ignore the evening light, and the noonday can burn bright in our living rooms well into the night.

The Evening, what is it for? We might ask, but I don’t think we often ask that question. What is it for? We may think that an evening is simply one of those things that is. That an evening has no purpose other than what we ascribe to it, and certainly with the invention of electric lights, we can ignore the evening light, and the noonday can burn bright in our living rooms well into the night.

Our Google calendar certainly does not tell us that there are differences in a 24hr period, it has blank spots that begin and 12am and go until 11pm. Time just waiting to be filled with whatever we decide. We are the masters of our destiny.

But it seems to me that if we think the day is something we exert our own will over and ignore God’s created patterns we end up restless, and tired. Either physically tired, or emotionally, or spiritually.

So is there a reason for an evening, is it for anything? Well I think maybe there is. We worship a God who created morning, noon, evening, and night. He did not have to, he could have made it differently, but he chose to have day and nights. Maybe God had a purpose in creating the day the way he did.

While God in his word does not come outright and say this is what I made the evening for, I think we can discern from nature and some narratives in Scripture that the evening is for blessing, rest, good food, friendship, acceptance, honesty, or as the Bible likes to say it: reclining at table. A kind of daily Sabbath rest.

Now all of these things can happen at other times, but the evening seems to be especially fitting for them. The day is coming to a close, we recline at table as a welcome reward from a day of labor. Meals, they last longer in the evening, we linger in the evening, our strength from the morning has faded just like the strength of the suns rays fade as they hide behind the horizon. We aren’t as quick to move, we sit with more contentment than we do in the morning. Like a kind of daily Sabbath rest.

And we need Jesus in the evening. Just like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, as they urged Jesus to remain with them that evening.

As it says in Luke 24

they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So Jesus went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them.

God made the morning and evening, he did not have to make them, but he did?

This evening we start what we called Vespers, which is the old latin word for Evening. And the early church took that word and redeemed it. So that Vespers became more than just a time, but sanctified time, a time for prayer, for blessing, for thankfulness, a time to reline at table to linger with Jesus and his people over a meal.

And the first song we sang was called the Phos Hileron or evening light, we will sing each week. The words to this song are the oldest Christian hymn. Christians for 17 hundred years have been singing this him. Since the beginning Christians have known that the evening was a special time. A time that as the sun begins to retreat, our eyes see a new kind of light, a warmer light a light full of color and peace, the vesper light. A light that reminds us of the true light, the light that brings joy, the light of the world. Jesus, the rest for our weary souls.

What are the evenings for? I think they are for us to recline at table and to linger with thankfulness together with Jesus the light of the world who brings Sabbath rest to his people.