Photo by Joshua Miguel at Picable.com
Son: Why do we define a new day beginning at midnight?
Father: It’s been that way for centuries.
Son: Is there some cosmic event that occurs at midnight that we can see in the stars from 11 pm to 1 am? Will we see something special and thus, know it must be midnight and the start of a new day?
Father: No, midnight is some arbitrary man-made reference that likely evolved from the Roman time system. The Romans marked midnight as the time halfway between sunset and sunrise.
Son: Isn’t there a better way?
Father: For the creator of the universe, the first day started with darkness, evolved into light, and ended when darkness returned.
Son: Why don’t we follow His lead?
Father: The ancients Greeks and Hebrews, along with current Jews and some other religious groups do follow this pattern. The ancient Babylonians and some other groups who worshiped the sun thought the day began at sunrise.
Son: If I wake up between 2-3 am, do I tell people I woke up in the middle of the night or early in the morning?
Father: Most people say the middle of the night.
Son: Why do you word it that way? I think I’d rather say the day starts with a beautiful sunset created by God instead of a non-event at midnight.
Father: Me too, son. But it’s hard to fight city hall.
Learn more about the Roman Time System.
Jim,
Great questions. Keep us thinking. About the only time someone cares if it is midnight yet is if it’s New Year’s Eve.
I hope your blog encourages more fathers and sons to have deep discussions about their faith. This is definitely needed.
I would really like to say thnaks very much for your work you have made in writing this article. I am hoping the same effective job by you down the road also.
Sometimes I think that people don’t uarsetnnd what they write. But you’re not one of them. You have ideas and you definitely know how to make them work in practice.