Most hymnals today have a topical section called “morning” and also the next called “evening.” This includes hymns like “All Praise to Thee, My God, This Night,” “Abide with Me, Fast Falls the Eventide,” “Savior, Breathe an Evening Blessing,” “Now the Day Is Over,” “The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended,” “Day is Dying in the West,” and “Softly Now the Light of Day.” These were familiar to those of us who grew up in a day when most evangelical churches had a worship service on Sunday evenings. This was usually a more informal service, sometimes called a “vesper service,” with more hymns being sung (often as people requested “favorites”), prayer requests fielded and offered, perhaps a testimony, and always Scripture and sermon.
How ironic that this section continues to be included in hymnals today, when it has become rare to find a church that still has a service on Sunday evening. For some, this loss is regarded as a sad sign of the times when “the Lord’s Day” has become merely “the Lord’s morning.” Historically, Sunday evening services were an emotional and psychological as well as spiritual joy for the covenant people of God, as the day began and ended in the Lord’s house. Some noted that it is significant that after the first and second Psalms (the first describing Jesus as that blessed man who sought the Lord whole-heartedly, and the second celebrating Jesus’ sovereign power over the rebellious kings of the earth as the begotten one anointed by the Father), the next two point to the beginning and ending of a day in worship. Psalm 3:5 reads, “I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me,” a Psalm for the morning. And the next one is a Psalm for the evening, as we read in Psalm 4:8, “In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for You alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety.”