Icon of Saint Patrick, Enlightener of Ireland
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life; whom shall I dread?
One thing I have asked from the Lord, that will I seek:
to remain in the house of the Lord all the days of my life;
to stare at the beauty of the Lord, and to pray in his temple.
So I will offer in his tent sacrifices of joy;
I will sing and make praise-music to the Lord.”
– an excerpt from Psalm 27
The Lord is my light, writes the psalmist. The phenomenon of light is one of the most primitive of all human experiences, yet we rarely give it a second thought except for when we need it. The sun is one of the most dazzling of earthly wonders, yet it blinds us when we stare at it. If in the modern age we were to take away the comfort of electrical technology, we would not be left with many other sources of light other than the sun. Starlight doesn’t illuminate very much, and lightning only shines for a split second at a time. Firelight is a little better, but still not very useful for the actual work of living. Can you imagine trying to plow a field with a team of oxen by torchlight?
When considered from this perspective, one can understand why sun-worship was such a common practice in ancient cultures and yet a relatively rare practice today. [Of course, we worship other idols––self, money, family, and the list goes on.] It is truly remarkable that in ancient Israelite culture there existed a group of people who did not worship the sun but claimed instead that God was their “light.” They claimed that this Divine Being, who created both the sun and the light, could not be seen or touched but that his Voice could be heard in some mystical way. So let me ask you, who would worship a god like that when the sun makes itself available and perceptible each and every day, without fail?
Who could? Surely, not us, blind sinners that we are.
Patrick of Ireland, whose feast we celebrate today, wrote strong words for those who worshiped the sun (see below). Consider his reasoned argument: the sun is temporal and has no power; Christ, on the other hand, has ruled with the Father and the Holy Spirit for all eternity; therefore, worship Jesus. He affirms that it is Jesus––not some delicate balance between the properties of physics that we call gravity and inertia––who commands the sun to rise each and every day. But this is not a theological innovation on the part of bishop Patrick; no, he simply repeats what the Israelite prophets said of old (Gen 8:20-22; Job 9:7; Isa 45:7; Jer 31:35-37; Amos 5:8-9). The psalmist goes a step further, however, declaring his desire to worship God not because it is rational––although it is that, since God has saved him, after all––but because it is pleasurable to “stare at the beauty of the Lord.”
Jesus takes this theological metaphor of light to its final conclusion when twice he says, “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12, 9:5). In English, it’s a ready pun: not the sun, but the Son. However, the truth of the matter is so much more devastating, for Christ is the “light” NOT because we are blinded when we look at Him, but because we are blind until we look at Him. Jesus himself uses this exact conceptual wordplay: “For judgment I have come into this world; so that those who do not see might see, and the ones who see might become blind” (John 9:39).
Therefore, seeing the truth of these things, today let us offer a sacrifice of joy alongside Patrick our brother, and (literally!) sing and make praise-music to the Lord. For He Himself is our Light and our Salvation.
“For this sun which we now see rises each new day for us at his command, yet it will never reign, nor will its splendor last forever. On the contrary, all who worship it today will be doomed to dreadful punishment. But we who believe and adore the true sun that is Christ, who will never die, nor “will those who have done his will” but “abide forever, just as Christ himself will abide for all eternity”: who reigns with God the Father all-powerful, and with the Holy Spirit before time began, and now and through all ages of ages. Amen.”
–an excerpt from The Confession of Saint Patrick, translated by John Skinner (New York: Doubleday, 1998), p.75.
Reading the Old Testament 