Sunset

Fear. Night is coming. Darkness shall soon be upon the land. Predators wander these dangerous mountains, lying in wait for any moving thing that is foolish enough to venture out after dark. The light is fading behind the trees. We must reach safety before nightfall! Fear strikes our hearts as we look back and see the sun’s final efforts to stay up result in merely a few rays striking out away from the horizon as if light itself is heaving one final breath. We know that each day, the sun loses its battle to stay in the sky, defeated by the smaller, yet infinitely more numerous stars that overpower it each evening and force it back into hiding. We know it has lost – the sky is red with the blood of the sun. Soon night will come and all who fail to hide in fear will be mere bones before the sun finds the strength to rise once more above the horizon.

According to modern scientific theory, we humans are the result of millions and billions of years of evolution. One proof of that is in how we often revert to our animal-like primal instincts when faced with a situation that our evolutionary ancestors struggled against for generations. According to this theory, our race was once the prey of many powerful beasts. This explains our fear of animals such as snakes or lions, which millions of years ago devoured our ancestors as if they were so many mice. To our supposed ancestors, however, a sunset was a sure sign of impending doom. Sunset meant night. Night meant darkness. Darkness meant predators. Predators means us becoming toothpicks.

But is that the case? Do we see a sunset and become stricken with an underlying primal fear, scared about what the darkness might bring? Does a red sky, moments from the sun’s disappearance over the horizon, bring panic and rabid paranoia to our thoughts? No. To us, a sunset is the pure essence of beauty. Everything else we see has its beauty compared to a slow setting of the sun behind distant mountains. Everything that brings us complete satisfaction yet is only temporary is compared to those few precious minutes before utter darkness where the sky turns red as the sun disappears over the horizon. Even if we fear the darkness, we still revel in the beauty of a setting sun, wondering how something so majestic, so awe-inspiring, came into existence.

Surely it was not random chance. Surely it was not so mundane and ultimately futile an explanation as evolution! Surely, this amazing picture can only have been painted by an even more majestic Designer! If we were descended from mere apes, we should tremble in fear at such a scene – but no! We revel. We hold it up as the standard of all that is beautiful and inspiring. We hold it in such high regard that we equate that purest of emotions – love – with the simple beauty of a setting sun. This is not chance. This is not evolution. This is the work of an almighty God! This is the work of a God that loves us and all He has created, or we would feel nothing but fear at the sight of the setting sun. Surely, when we stand and look across the horizon at this majestic scene, we can do no other than rejoice in the power and love and majesty of our Creator.

The Mighty One, God the LORD,
speaks and summons the earth
from the rising of the sun to its setting.
Out of Zion,the perfection of beauty,
God shines forth.
(Psalm 50:1-2)

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