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Of all the created things which bear testimony to their Maker, none is quite so singular as the sun. Indeed, in that central passage, declaring the witness of the heavens (Psalm 19), particular attention is paid to the sun, stating that the heavens themselves have been established as a tent through which it runs. That’s quite a tent! So dominated is the earth by its unparalleled presence that the writer of Ecclesiastes simply defines existence as being “under the sun.” It’s little wonder that mankind, alienated from its Creator, would find in the sun such a worthy focus of veneration. The pagan would be hard-pressed to find another created object so suited for deification than the sun, with its power, light and the multiple benefits it provides our waiting world. For this reason, I would like to explore for a moment that most regal reflector of our God – the sun.
Every moment of our life is marked by its faithful circuit. While we have long known that we are the ones moving, we can’t fight the sense that it is the one rising and sliding in splendor across the sky. And even as we sense its motion it never seems to move. With every fleeting glance, it seems suspended in silent stillness. Most often it is only its radiant rising or glorious recession that reminds us it’s moved at all. We realize then as the darkness approaches, like wild beasts creeping out from the edges of the forest, that the dark is really nothing in itself, but the absence of the light. And even through the gloomy span of night the sun is still reflected by the moon and planets ever gazing on his face.
It’s difficult to adequately comprehend how vital the sun’s heat is to us. Roughly 93 million miles away, and with a gulf of frozen space between, we still rely upon its warming rays. Every facet of our life hangs upon the preciseness of this separation. Any closer and we’d burn, any further and we’d freeze. We may grumble as we shiver on a sunny winter’s day, wondering where its heat has gone. But it’s only because we can’t imagine the violence of the cold that would seize us, were the sun to really disappear. And even when the clouds diffuse its brightness they serve as floating blankets retaining its residual heat.
Long before our manmade solar panels marred the hills and decked the rooflines all around us, every verdant leaf and sprouting blade was capturing and converting the constant flow of sunshine. But does it not strike you that that mystical process we call photosynthesis does far more than convert sunlight into growth? I have written elsewhere of the endless array of colors that come to us on its seemingly bland and boring beams, but have you noticed that those colors find expression in the produce that we harvest from the ground? The wild reds and vibrant yellows, the soothing blues and vivid greens may be irrelevant to our stomachs, but they are a pleasing pallet to our eyes!
The sun is also so weighty that scientists estimate it comprises 99.8% of our entire solar system’s mass. Its enormous centrality led one scientist to describe our system as simply “the sun and some debris.” And though the rest of our system may be debris, scattered rocks, chunks of ice and barren planets, still our sun holds us in an orbit perfectly suited to sustain a fragile yet teeming oasis of life and wonder. That the power feels so gentle is another semblance of our Lord, who holds all things together by the word of His power, and doesn’t just create life, but sustains it as well.
Many a cheesy church sign has utilized the convenient homophone of sun and Son. We roll our eyes and shake our heads as we read the painful puns. But could it not be that He Who divided the tongues of earth ordained this similarity, knowing the thousand quick connections we would make? It rises in glory, sustains us by its power, fuels our produce, banishes the dark, warms our world, and holds us all in orbit. As I said before, it’s hard to think of a better marker of our Maker in all of creation. So the likeness in the language may be far more than uncanny coincidence. “Light of the world” is a title our Lord Himself assumed, and no other celestial luminary can rightly own the name.
And just as the moon is often seen as feminine, so almost every culture has held the sun as masculine. The Psalmist says the sun goes forth like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber. One can only imagine seeking his bride. He is hardy and hale and rejoices to run his race, but each day he goes home without her, setting in the glorious hope of that coming day. Perhaps that’s why the sunset has always inspired thoughts of heaven in me, a hint of that day when our Lord won’t go home alone.
