Ballot Boxing: Fasting and feasting on Election Day

How then do we wait?

That’s the question on this Election Day, as the most toxic presidential contest in modern American history finally draws to a close. For most Americans it’s also an ordinary day: Many got up early, took the kids to school, washed a load of laundry, went to work, planned dinner, and perhaps thought about a neighbor who needs a little help.

For Christians, that’s how it should be. Our ordinary callings carry on regardless of the extraordinary nature of this day.

Undoubtedly, this abysmal election season has given us plenty to mourn. Our top two presidential candidates mirror a coarsening culture unmoored from standards of truth. That’s been happening for years. We now see one of the grievous destinations where that road can lead.

And so lots of Christians rightly spent time in churches on Sunday praying for God’s mercy on our nation. Some declared a day of fasting and prayer for Monday or Tuesday. One congregation in my hometown spent as much time praying for repentance, reformation, and revival in the church as they did praying for any political outcome.

Now we wait.

But as Christians, we don’t wait without hope, no matter what political result looms. This isn’t the Saturday after Good Friday when the disciples hung their heads and wondered how things would turn out. We live in the light of Easter Sunday, when we know that Christ is risen indeed.

That didn’t mean the early disciples didn’t face difficulties, anymore than it means that for us, but it did mean the triumph of good over evil, and of Christ over us.

This means when we stand in the voting booth, we ought to take our decisions seriously, but not as if we will single-handedly alter the course of human history forever. Someone greater has already done that. We live our lives in the wake of a glorious outcome, and waiting for another one to come.

So all the other things we do today—if done to the glory of God—matter as much as how we vote. That’s the glory of the mundane: How we work, how we clean the kitchen, how we read our Bibles, how we parent our children, how we speak to our spouses and friends, how we interact with our neighbors, how we pray for the kingdom to come, how we rejoice in suffering. These are the building blocks of life together in Christ, and along with the preaching of God’s Word, these are the most powerful witnesses to the world around us of a kingdom that can’t be shaken.

There is a time to fast, but there’s also a time to break our fasting with celebrating, not for a political victory, but for a spiritual one that doesn’t depend on earthly leaders.

So here’s one suggestion for this evening: Turn the TV off (if you have one) and make a big dinner. Include dessert. Eat with your family or friends. Don’t talk about politics for an hour. Be joyful. Perhaps even better, do this on Wednesday night, after we know who won.

There is a time to fast, but there’s also a time to break our fasting with celebrating, not for a political victory, but for a spiritual one that doesn’t depend on earthly leaders.

Singer-songwriter Andrew Peterson recently noted that in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the White Witch discovered a group of animals feasting and celebrating Aslan’s return. She considered it an act of war. Peterson suggests we too can feast as an act of war in a weary world.

It’s an echo of Martin Lloyd-Jones’ declaration that it’s the Christian’s privilege to “shock the world with joy.” Even as we mourn, we have that privilege now.