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Praying about the flow of time: Praising God for seasons

Lynne Baab • Thursday June 19 2025

Praying about the flow of time: Praising God for seasons

Today, I want to praise God for the way the Earth is tipped. If you draw a line from the North to the South Pole and extend that line beyond the Earth, the line is not perpendicular to the path of the Earth around the sun. This website has a motion graphic  that illustrates what I’m saying. Scroll down to below the video.

Because of the tipping of the Earth, we have seasons. On Friday this week, at 7:42 p.m. here on the West Coast of the United States, the Northern Hemisphere will be at its closest to the sun. The days are the longest they can be. We call that moment the summer solstice, and at that same time in the Southern Hemisphere, the winter solstice will occur. In Auckland, the winter solstice will be Saturday at 2:42 p.m.

The Sioux, Cheyenne, and Crow peoples celebrate the summer solstice with sun dances. In Scandinavia, processions with maypoles and flower wreaths mark the solstice. In Australia, the winter solstice is marked with light festivals and (sometimes) nude swims. In New Zealand, the winter solstice is closely linked with Matariki, June 20 this year, which marks the reappearance of the constellation Pleiades (Matariki in Māori, the language of the indigenous Māori people). This is the Māori New Year, celebrated as a public holiday since 2022.

For the solstice that happens in December — winter in the Northern Hemisphere and summer in the southern — Christians are often accused of appropriating solstice celebrations into Christmas. June has no parallel Christian celebration. Last Sunday was Trinity Sunday, hardly a major event (sadly). The previous Sunday was Pentecost, more widely celebrated. Since Pentecost is seven weeks after Easter, and the date for Easter changes, Pentecost can range from May 10 to June 13. None of those dates come close to the solstice.

Therefore, most Christians ignore the June solstice. Many of us are probably a bit leery of celebrating the solstice because we wonder if we would be stepping into paganism in some way. I will make some suggestions for how to praise God on the solstice.

1. The sun. The solstice reminds us to thank God for the sun. Pause to imagine what Earth would be like without the sun. We certainly wouldn’t be here. The words in Psalm 19 about the sun are a bit amusing to us today, because we know the Earth revolves around the sun rather than vice versa. But the imagery is fabulous. Pray these words as you read them, and rejoice that the sun is like a strong man whose heat permeates the Earth and gives us all our forms of energy:

In the heavens [God] has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy,
    and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens
    and its circuit to the end of them,
    and nothing is hid from its heat. (Psalm 19:4-6)

2. The light. In the Northern Hemisphere, we can thank God for the abundant light of the summer solstice and the long days we are experiencing. In the Southern Hemisphere, we can thank God that the winter solstice indicates that the light will slowly return over the next weeks and months. “Light” is used 100 times in the New Testament. Most of the time, the word is used metaphorically, referring to God’s light in us or in Jesus. If you want to see all 100 uses, look here. If you want to see the many ways light refers to Jesus, look here for the 16 times “light” appears in the gospel of John.

Lord Jesus Christ, light of the world, thank you that you shine into the darkness of our world. Keep shining, we pray, into the darkness each of us experiences far too often.

3. The seasons. We can thank God for the tiping of the Earth’s axis, which gives us the seasons. Days lengthen and shorten, and the light and weather change over the year. In my first post in this series about the flow of time, I quoted from an old hymn:

All beautiful the march of days,
As seasons come and go.
The hand that shaped the rose has wrought
The crystal of the snow. . . .

O God, from whose unfathomed Law
The year in beauty flows,
Yourself the vision passing by
In crystal and in rose.

Creator God, we praise you that the earth is tipped, giving us seasons. The beauty of the seasons reflects your beauty. You are in the delicacy of snow crystals in winter and the glory of roses in summer. Your care flows over us like the rain. The wind of your Spirit blows through us like the gentle and vigorous winds at different times of the year. We depend on seasons to grow the food you provide for us to eat. We praise you for varied gifts that come to us through changes in weather, winds, and light.    

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Next week: different endings to the four gospels. Illustration by Dave Baab: Columbia City Farmers Market, Seattle, open only in summer.

An article recently added to my website: Meeting God in grief and gratitude.

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