It’s Josh Norquist, writing to you after just arriving back home from a trip to our nation’s capital with Trevor White. Trevor and I were visiting some college friends on the east coast over last weekend, and decided to stop by and watch the inauguration.  It was an incredible experience, with lots of memories, and I’m excited to share a little bit about this picture with you. But first, a qualification:

In the last election, I didn’t vote for Barack Obama. In fact, I didn’t vote at all. I thought of it as my way of voicing my dissatisfaction with the popular candidates. I didn’t feel adequately represented by either party. Which was too bad, because I really care for this country, and I would have loved to participate in the political process in a more profound way.

The point being: I was not at the inauguration to celebrate the intricacies of a political ideology, or the people that lead it. But I was there all the same.

Which leads me to this picture.

Here I was. Six in the morning, in a city I don’t call home, with millions of strangers flanking me at all sides.

Waiting in anticipation for a man I didn’t vote for, in support of causes I don’t wholeheartedly endorse.

Here I was. Alone with myself. Alone amongst many.

But then, the sun rose.

It floated up over the hill, up the capitol walls and sat high above the crowd, as it has every morning since the city was built, and many, many mornings before it.

There’s a cheapness in saying I was relieved at the sight of it, because I wasn’t particularly anxious before it came. I didn’t feel threatened by the differences between myself and the people around me. I was not David, waiting in the dark for the Lord to save me. These were not my captors. The place was not my prison.

But, still, it moved me. There’s a delicate beauty in this image, and I’m almost afraid to draw out the symbols with words, as it might somehow make the experience feel forced or contrived. But I’ve wasted enough space already with winks and allusions, so forgive what follows, if you find it clumsy.

We are a messy group – us humans. We use each other, and hurt each other, and break each other. We stumble and fall and fail. Our moral compasses are shaky and unsure. We undermine peace for personal gain, putting self-fulfillment ahead of self-sacrifice. But to our credit, I suppose, we are sober enough to recognize it.

In the face of all our misdeeds, we hope for change. For a better tomorrow. For a redeemed world. Everything we touch – from politics to education to economics, is formed and reformed, in our attempt to make things whole.  We elect it, and praise it and hold high among us the people who lead us toward it. We want to be whole. We want to be redeemed. We want to be better.

We want to be saved.

And that, I think, is what sunrises are all about. Though our very best efforts fail, though our politics may be warped, though our banners and our symbols and our slogans be misshapen, God is present still.

God is bigger than all of it. God sees all. God knows all. God controls all. And God is working for our good.

God is bigger than our initiative, and brighter  than both our most brilliant triumphs and our darkest failings. And it is God who will lead us through to glory.

The day is new, and God is in it. Still, God leads us on. Still, the sun rises.

– Josh Norquist

Church Development Coordinator