If Kamala Harris ever lived up to her self-description that she is “not aspiring to be humble,” it came when her campaign treated the Bible verse “joy cometh in the morning” as though it foretold her election as president. Yet on the morning that false prophecy came to nought, God seemed to reassert His sovereignty, deliverance, and vindication through His Word and an ancient hymn recorded in a prayer book used by 85 million Christians worldwide — including many of her supporters.
Early Wednesday morning, it became clear America had been spared the election of a candidate who promised to erase religious objections and force Christians into funding and participating in abortion and other sinful activities. The 2024 election felt different; it felt definitive. On one side stood a candidate who wanted to honor America’s heritage; on the other, a team that aimed at “fundamentally transforming the United States of America” now asked for four more years to “finish the job.” In 2024, America voted in favor of itself.
Through the centuries, it has become customary to pray a hymn known as the Te Deum after receiving a blessing, or deliverance from some great calamity. This hymn, which is so ancient that no one is certain who wrote it, welds every order of earthly and angelic creation into one chorus of praise. Before proceeding to the Te Deum, look at Psalm 30. The Bible always applies God’s eternal and unchanging wisdom to our everyday circumstances, but this specific Psalm prophetically addressed the election and its misuse of God’s Word.
“I will magnify thee, O LORD; for Thou hast set me up, and not made my foes to triumph over me,” it began. “O LORD my God, I cried unto Thee; and Thou hast healed me. Thou, LORD, hast brought my soul out of Hell: Thou hast kept my life, that I should not go down into the pit.”
Reading this Psalm the morning after an election, God seemed to engage the Harris-Walz campaign’s hermeneutic and convey the voice of America itself crying out to God in thanksgiving.
Then, verse five says: “Heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
Kamala Harris, or whoever writes her soliloquies, branded the party’s desperate defenestration of Joe Biden after his June 27 debate performance an act of “joy.” Soon, Psalm 30:5 became the ubiquitous rallying cry of Democrats, who had begun to despair over Biden’s inevitable loss. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY-D) gave an uncharacteristically religious speech to the Democratic National Convention, invoking the phrase like a revivalist trying to get the American people to accept Kamala Harris as their political lord and savior. Jeffries quoted the verse twice in one minute — just 50 seconds after he reassured the nation that a President Harris would “always protect a woman’s freedom to make her own reproductive health care decisions,” a euphemism for abortion.
Maryland Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks wound the Psalmist’s verse into a political omen as she completed her DNC address. “It’s always darkest before the dawn. We know that we can endure for a night, because ‘joy cometh in the morning,’” Alsobrooks, who won her Senate race on Tuesday, told the DNC. “Morning is coming! Morning is coming, and that joy will be led by Kamala Harris!” Last Sunday, nine days before the election, the vice president even shouted the phrase from the pulpit of West Philadelphia’s Church of Christian Compassion in a strange new accent. (Unlike Jesus, she thought it appropriate to bear witness of herself.)
A better scriptural commentator, St. Augustine of Hippo, interpreted Psalm 30’s “weeping” as the human race straining under the yoke of sin and death, while the “joy” foretells “the exultation of the resurrection, which hath shone forth by anticipation in the morning resurrection of the Lord” Jesus Christ. Crafting an entire campaign around the idolatrous application of a Messianic prophecy to Kamala Harris is … not an act of humility. Yet ever since “values voters” made up the margin of victory in the 2004 presidential election, Democrats have alternated between invoking their newfound public faith on the campaign trail and violating its traditional beliefs in office. Nancy Pelosi invoked her Catholicism at least 10 times while supporting abortion and claimed it “compels” her to support same-sex marriage.
In 2024, the Kamala Harris campaign tried to conceal its contempt for half of America and rebellion against God’s moral standards behind a campaign of vibes wrapped up in a twisting of the Bible. But God had the last laugh, putting the words of her failed campaign slogan on the lips of Christians in praise to Himself on the morning she contemplated writing her concession speech.
The Book of Common Prayer has been a resource for the 85 million Anglicans around the world. The vast majority of clergy in The Episcopal Church not only supported Kamala Harris but preach a god who blesses abortion and the LGBTQIA+ agenda in sermons that combine thick, syrupy postmodernism and a thin gruel of non-specific religious sentimentality. And, despite many unhappy revisions to the American prayer book, Psalm 30 remains the first Psalm read on the sixth of each month. They, too, read Psalm 30 the morning after the election as an indictment of their attempts to redefine biblical morality.
America will not find healing until it learns that no politician delivers any lasting joy. God alone can provide satisfying and abiding spiritual joy, which is a virtue, not a vibe; a fruit of the spirit, not a fleeting campaign slogan; and the gift not of any earthly ruler, prince, or satrap, but of the King of kings and Lord of lords, Who has given us an everlasting kingdom that is not of this world.
If you share my view that God has given us a reprieve from the worst, I invite you to join me in reading Psalm 30 in its entirety and praying the Te Deum, which I’ve printed below. And let us give thanks for the power of the One Who alone brings true joy.
Psalm 30:
I will magnify thee, O LORD; for Thou hast set me up, and not made my foes to triumph over me.
O LORD my God, I cried unto Thee; and Thou hast healed me.
Thou, LORD, hast brought my soul out of Hell: Thou hast kept my life, that I should not go down into the pit.
Sing praises unto the LORD, O ye saints of His; and give thanks unto Him, for a remembrance of His holiness.
For His wrath endureth but the twinkling of an eye, and in His pleasure is life; heaviness may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be removed: Thou, LORD, of Thy goodness, hast made my hill so strong.
Thou didst turn thy face from me, and I was troubled.
Then cried I unto Thee, O LORD; and gat me to my LORD right humbly.
What profit is there in my blood, when I go down into the pit?
Shall the dust give thanks unto Thee? or shall it declare Thy truth?
Hear, O LORD, and have mercy upon me; LORD, be Thou my helper.
Thou hast turned my heaviness into joy; Thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness:
Therefore shall every good man sing of thy praise without ceasing. O my God, I will give thanks unto Thee for ever.
Te Deum laudamus:
We praise Thee, O God; we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.
All the earth doth worship Thee, the Father everlasting.
To Thee all angels cry aloud; the heavens, and all the Powers therein;
To Thee Cherubim and Seraphim continually do cry,
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth;
Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of Thy glory.
The glorious company of the Apostles praise Thee.
The goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise Thee.
The noble army of Martyrs praise Thee.
The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge Thee;
The Father, of an infinite Majesty;
Thine adorable, true, and only Son;
Also the Holy Ghost, the Comforter.
Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ.
Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.
When Thou tookest upon Thee to deliver man,
Thou didst humble thyself to be born of a Virgin.
When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death,
Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.
Thou sittest at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father.
We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge.
We therefore pray Thee, help Thy servants, whom
Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious blood.
Make them to be numbered with Thy saints, in glory everlasting.
O Lord, save Thy people, and bless Thine heritage.
Govern them, and lift them up for ever.
Day by day we magnify Thee;
And we worship Thy Name ever, world without end.
Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.
O Lord, have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us.
O Lord, let Thy mercy be upon us, as our trust is in Thee.
O Lord, in Thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded.
Rev. Dr. Kenneth L. Beale, Jr.
Chaplain (Colonel-Ret), U.S. Army
Pastor, Ft. Snelling Memorial Chapel
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