Lord of Summer Solstice

Living in the full light of day

The longest day is here.  The daylight drawn out to its fullest stretch.  The 21 June marks the Summer solstice in the northern hemisphere.  This year, in Ireland, it follows a few weeks of what has actually felt like summer.  Something we learn not to take for granted!  Sun drenched days and longer evenings bring us outdoors to soak it all in.  Such days are good… maybe even glorious.  When the smiling summer shines on the festival of love celebrated at a wedding, it may even at times feel other worldly.  If not too good to be true, then life as it should be, at its height.  

At the summer solstice the sun is at its highest point in the sky.  The festivals in ancient Ireland marked this by lighting fires on high hills, which symbolised the sun.  Foods were cooked over hot flames and were often sun coloured and round, like lemons, corn or sweet potatoes.  There were also wheels of fire rolled down hills, just as the sun would begin its descent again from this day on.  The festival was a time of celebration in the middle of the growing season, sometimes called midsummer, marking fertility and life.  Celebrations on hills to the sun at its peak marked the high point in life. 

The sun was a central marker of time in the Celtic calendar.  The eight feast days across the year were all celebrated in relation to the sun and seasons.  So at the other side of the year we have the winter solstice, when in the darkest day of the year, light evoked something different, it broke through the darkness and chased away the evil.  At Bealtaine, at the beginning of May, we stepped into the summer.  The summer solstice was the sun at its height, in the thick of summer, life to the full. 

When Patrick brought the message of Jesus to Ireland he sought to shift the focus of those Druids who worshipped the sun to the One who was beyond and behind its glory and light.  Indeed the One who would outlast its shining and was even more essential for life. 

The sun which we see rising for us each day at his command, that sun will never reign nor will its splendour continue forever; and all those who adore that sun will come to a bad, miserable penalty. We, however, believe in and adore the true sun, that is, Christ, who will never perish. Nor will they perish who do his will but they will abide forever just as Christ will abide forever

It seems even in Patrick’s day a good pun was to be celebrated.  So he shifts focus from the sun to the Son.  Whilst the centre of our calendar and the bright light high in the sky is essential to human life on our planet he insists it will not burn forever, unlike Jesus.  It seems there is One who is higher and more central to our lives, than even the sun itself. One who is truly essential.  

Today we might struggle to find many people who worship the sun.  

Rather, to be a sun worshipper, means something different- to bask in its rays and look to beautify and bronze our bodies.  So we make the appearance or the shape of our bodies an idol, which we prize.  

Or could it be that we are enthralled with buying shiny new stuff for ourselves?   Losing ourselves in the things we own, in our materialism, or what we buy, in our consumerism.  

It could also be that we too might seek to climb to the heights, infatuated with our standing and status, happy as long as our star is on the rise.  

To each of these shiny everyday idols, there is also the shadow.  

So we might struggle with self worth because our bodies are not in the shape we hoped.  

We might be sad that we don’t seem to have the money to buy the latest shiny goods. 

We feel down because no-ones seems to recognise or to rate us.  

Whether we are disappointed from such shiny idols burning themselves out, or because their absence leaves us in the shadows, our heads can be lifted to another, the One who when we honour Him as high above all and central in our lives means that everything else finds its proper place. ‘In your light, we see light’ (Psalm 36.9).

The One whose light is inexhaustible.

So even in the height of summer; life as it should be, we can remember that even when the sun is shining on us there is someone more and somewhere more we are made for.  A heaven on earth that lies ahead of us, which… 
does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, 
for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.
Revelation 21.23 

Prayer: 

Jesus, Light of World, 

We follow you 

Knowing that you will not leave us in the dark

But with you, we walk in the light of life

In our lives

Be the centre

Be exalted

We humbly pray.