Published 11.09.2016
The following is an adapted version of a message I preached during the chapel service at Geneva College, just hours after our nation elected our new President. In God’s kindness, the message seemed to strengthen some stricken hearts. Whatever your emotional state after an exhausting election season, I hope it’s a blessing to you, too. It was written to be spoken, but hopefully comes across clearly enough in this format.
A loss can be very hard to take; but sometimes, so can a win.
We have a new President of the United States. He won in dramatic fashion, in the early morning hours, and like the campaign season itself, the angst-ridden process left the American public emotionally and physically exhausted, and for so many of us, feeling profoundly sick. One of the saddest parts of this sick feeling is that had the election gone the opposite way, it likely would have left us feeling much the same, though for different reasons. Either way this race would have concluded, there was no way for a victory at the top of the ticket which was not also a reason to weep. We’ve seen so much ugliness, vitriol, and dishonesty out of both camps and both candidates and all throughout the candidates’ respective careers. The campaign is over, but for the next four years, what are we in for? And as a Christian institution, and for all of us here who personally identify with the Lord Jesus Christ – what is to be our posture of heart this morning, and moving ahead?
First, and this is why we sang Psalm 51, – we repent. We have to recognize, based on the standards of God’s holy word, and the standards to which he holds all people, and political leaders, the standards the Lord always told his people to seek whenever they were to appoint leaders … we have to admit that what happened early this morning, was a calamity.