As Posted to Medium on March 6, 2024

Surely this cannot be happening again? The wounds from four years ago are barely beginning to heal. Yet, incredulously, we find ourselves facing another face-off between President Biden and former-President Trump. This is truly terrifying on multiple levels but it is perhaps most horrifying because of the divisions that the 2020 election sowed in the Church.

Unity in the Body of Christ is something that Jesus values dearly. As he prepared for His own horrific death, Jesus prayed not only for Himself, but also for God to take care of the ones He cared about most in the world: us. Our relationships with one another were an essential part of that prayer.

“I pray… that they may be one as we are one — I in them and you in me — so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:20–23)

Christ desires us to be one as He and the Father are one. That is, He desires us to be united in perfect, sacrificial love for one another, caring for one another even when it requires great sacrifice. Such unity is what we have to look forward to in the world to come, when we are perfectly bound up with our triune-God and one another. While it is the future that we anxiously await, it is also essential to our life now because the love we have for one another is the foundation of our witness in the world. We can hem and haw about the ways that our culture is pulling our youth from God, the sinfulness that pervades our entertainment and the persecution of the Church, but if we do not love one another with the unifying love of Christ, we have only ourselves to blame for world that does not know Jesus.

This is why the coming election fills me with both dread and sorrow. We all witnessed the way that the politics around the last presidential election and the insurrection bitterly pitted brother against brother. We watched in disbelief as members of our own congregations, friends and even priests allowed politics to pull them away from love and unity. People who we once fellowshipped with turned us into targets of hate-filled speech and even death threats. My own friends, who had supported me through the death of my daughter and encouraged me through the subsequently terrifying pregnancy with my son, stood by silently as one of their spouses publicly declared that people like me should be shot.

We all have had painful experiences like this that lead us to ask, “Where was Christ when members of His Body did this?” and we are justified when we respond with anger. Like Christ who raged at the defiling of the temple, we too should feel righteous anger towards those who are defiling his Church with division and hatred because the unity of the Body is precious to Him. But the Apostle Paul cautioned us: “In your anger do not sin: do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.” (Ephesians 4:26). How can we limit our anger so that it does not further divide the Body of Christ on earth, especially when our brothers and sisters in Christ have quite literally become our political enemies?

I believe the answer lies in the heart of our faith: God’s immeasurable love for His people. When we take time to ponder the full height and depth of His love — a love that culminated in His death on a cross and resurrection from the dead — we witness not only His love for ourselves, but also for all those He has made. As we allow Him to show us how deeply and vulnerably He desires us, we begin to see how desperately He seeks to dwell with our neighbors. If we accept the weight of His sorrow over our sin and separation from Him, we begin to sense His heartbreak when those around us separate themselves from Him. And as we delight in a loving relationship with Him, we begin to mourn for those who do not know Him.

With our minds and hearts firmly grounded in our fellowship with Christ, the divisions and hatred that politics sow engender in us not just anger, but also the sadness of a God who longs for a relationship with His wayward people. We begin to pity those who hold so tightly to their world views that they are unable to abide in the adoring, good God who is Love (1 John 4:16). I believe it is here that true healing can take place because, rather than seeing each other as enemies, sympathy moves us towards charity and prayer for each other. Each time we fix our gaze on Christ, the fleeting grievances of today yield to His unending, glorious love and we are transformed again and again.

So, as we pray that, by some miracle, our country will be spared another devastating election season, let us also hold tight to the love of Christ that allows us to love one another since, as Jesus prepared to die, He did not pray for any particular form of government or powerful leader, but asked instead for the unity of His people.