Yesterday afternoon as I was collecting my thoughts for this devotional, CNN reported that 70% of COVID-19 fatalities in Louisiana are African Americans, even though African Americans comprise only 32% of the State’s population.  Governor Edwards observed that most of the fatalities have involved persons with multiple co-morbidities. In other words, most of the people who have died had more than one serious, life-threatening disease before contracting the virus. This suggests that the overall health of the African American community is poorer than the overall health of the general population. Dr. Corey Hebert, a long-time physician and professor in the City, attributes this disparity, in part, to a flawed system that impedes access to the poor. “African Americans are the most vulnerable by being disenfranchised and systematically marginalized for generations,” he said. The result is that the poor are less healthy and more vulnerable.

The New Orleans Baptist Association shares this concern for the vulnerable, as well as the desire to see access expanded to the medically underserved.  Motivated by love for our neighbors, the churches of the New Orleans Baptist Association sold properties that it owned in the CBD and Uptown, and reinvested the proceeds in the medically underserved communities of the Upper and Lower 9th Ward. When we launched Baptist Community Health Services in 2014, there were no medical facilities of any kind in the Lower 9th Ward. In fact, there were no pharmacies, grocery stores, filling stations, fire or police stations. But our neighbors were there. And there with them was where we wanted to be.

I am glad that we are there. I am glad that during these days of quarantine and stay-at-home orders, our doctors and staff are there on the frontline providing quality, compassionate care to our brothers and sisters.

Being there makes all the difference. But the difference isn’t made overnight. We are committed to being there until all our neighbors have access to quality healthcare and the other amenities that make for a healthy, caring community.

It is good that we think about these things during Holy Week, because prioritizing the good of our neighbors isn’t conventional thinking. Truth be told, the suggestion that we open our hearts and our purse to others, especially the poor and vulnerable, makes us a little uncomfortable, a bit uneasy.

So we turn our thoughts to Jesus. He went further than most of us have imagined in coming for us. In him we see a life of deepening descent into our human condition that bottomed out on Holy Saturday. In death, he experienced the full consequence of our sin. He plunged to the depth of fallen humanity in order to redeem us root and all. Why would he do this?  Paul answers, “He died for us so that…we may live together with him” (1 Thessalonians 5:10).

Holy Saturday tells us how far the incarnate Son of God was willing to go to save us. Being there made all the difference. Christ was there, in the hell of our making, for us. Therefore, he is able to comfort us in our suffering, to give meaning to our sorrow, and to understand our loneliness, pain, and struggles. He was there where we betrayed God, so he can bring us peace with the Father.

Holy Saturday was dark for the disciples. Christ was dead. Their hopes were dashed. But the Lover of our souls was diving deep into the furthest reaches of our alienation to reclaim us. And when he touched the bottom of death’s darkness God exalted him, raising him up in victory over sin, death, and hell, and raising us up in his life.

With the Apostle we sing this new song: “For me to live is Christ!”

I am glad that we are following Christ into the underserved communities of our City, going ‘all in’ for the good of our brothers and sisters there, and sending our best and brightest to expand access to the good things of God in the name of Christ.

So let us love, dear Love, like as we ought,
–Love is the lesson which the Lord us taught.

Edmund Spencer
From Easter, 1595