Dear friends in Christ –
Emotion is running high this morning. Some are elated, some in despair. Depending on one’s close circle, there is either a sense that all is lost or that all has been reclaimed. Who is right and who is wrong is for history to decide.
What is not up for judgement is the sure and certain knowledge that God is God. God did not lose, nor did God win, in this election. God is victory, and life, and love simply because God is God. And through the saving power of the sacrificial love of Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit who walks our journey with us, we are born anew – every single day – into that victory, life, and love.
I am mindful at this moment of two passages of Holy Scripture. The first is the opening of the first chapter of the Gospel according to St. John, a portion of which is on the Church Calendar for today. Regardless of whether we voted for the victor or the defeated in this election, regardless of how the person we find ourself communicating with today voted, we must remember that we were all created by the One who was, and is, and is to come; that darkness cannot overcome the light of Christ Jesus; and that God’s gift to us is always going to be grace upon grace.
The second passage of which I am mindful is the final section of Matthew 25. Now, more than ever, we need to recognize and live into one of the clearest things Jesus ever said about how we interact with others – that how we treat the impoverished, the imprisoned, the malnourished, the one who differs from us – that how we treat “the other” speaks directly to how we treat the God who is love. Every human being is a child of God, and loved by Jesus. Therefore, we can do no less. Whether we are elated this morning over this earthly thing called an election, or in despair over it. We can do no less.
Emotion is running high today, my friends. And yet, God is still God.
May that very same God bless and keep us all, this day and unto ages of ages.
Yours in Christ,
The Right Reverend E. Mark Stevenson, Bishop of Virginia