The Prayer of Sunset

When I was a young boy, during the War years, we faithfully observed a little ritual in our home, not from a sens of piety, but to aid the war effort. We would not put on the lights until five o’clock, . In my child’s mind this quickly became associated with the end of the day and the change of pace it brought. It became the signal for my mother to begin preparing supper, and it meant my father would soon be home from work.

Long before electricity, the lighting of the household lamps heralded the evening. In the Book of Exodus, chapter thirty, it is reported that God commanded Moses to see to it that seven lamps were lit in the Tabernacle between sunset and nightfall:

«You are to make these offerings of incense before the Lord without fail from one generation to the next.Early Christians, continuing a practive already long established among the pagans, would bless the evening light with a short prayer of praise. Soon they began to augment this very simple rite with a hymn and other prayers. But even when a regular routine of prayer was organized in the church building, the blessing of the evening light remained the pivot on which all the other ceremonial gestures revolved.

These early Christians made Psalm 140 their evening prayer, because of the phrase . Even to this day, the recitation of Psalm 140 is an integral part of vespers, the evening service of prayer. The other phrase of the opening verses, , probably urged them to restore the lapsed rite of burning fragrant spices. The first Christians had disdained the use of incense because it was connected with pagan rituals, but as the acute danger of idolatry began to subside, the study of Scripture moved them to restore the use of incense as an act of worship.

Richard Wurmbrand