Port Sulphur is a little community thirty miles downriver–and we’re talking about straight downriver!–below Belle Chasse, which puts it some 40 miles from New Orleans and at the halfway point of the thinnest, skinniest parish in the state, Plaquemines. I said to my son Neil, “Think of having a county in Alabama that would be 10 miles wide and reach from Nauvoo to Birmingham.”
Sometimes one mile wide seems more like it. Driving down state highway 23, you see the Mississippi River on your left and the wetlands just off to your right. Orange farms pop up frequently along the uneventful drive, then once in a while a huge installation of some kind on your left sitting alongside, atop, inside the levee for quick loading onto the river, and dwellings of all kinds. A mansion here, a trailer park there. Names of little unknown towns appear only as road signs with nothing, and I mean nada, in between that and the next town. This used to be a thriving area, but Katrina is not to blame for all the absence of people; the oil bust of the 1980s gets credit for that.
Port Sulphur Baptist Church was one of five Southern Baptist churches in lower Plaquemines prior to Katrina. This church, Buras-Triumph, and City Price churches managed to maintain congregations large enough to carry on ministries. Riverview at Buras and Venice (at the end of the road) were drying up, down to only a handful of hardy souls.
Katrina put them all out of business. Between the hurricane-force winds and the storm surge, almost nothing in this part of the world survived. The churches were gutted and their beams twisted and everything they owned was ruined. Church members scattered along with another million residents of our part of the world in every direction across America. Many are still where they landed and will not be coming back.
The major difference I noticed between post-Katrina Plaquemines Parish and this morning was how clean and neat everything appears. All the destroyed houses have been removed, the litter is gone. A lot of rebuilding is going on and it will be another five years before any sort of normalcy is restored. But it’s so much better than it was.
Sunday morning, Pastor Lynn Rodrigue announced to the houseful of worshipers, “God has done a mighty thing for us.” We were seated in the newly rebuilt sanctuary, gathered for the formal dedication of this worship center. Behind us and to our left were new buildings which housed Sunday School classes, offices, bathrooms, a kitchen, and the weekday school. Lynn told me recently they’re up to sixty students (I think that was the number). He was delighted because, among other reasons, that is the break-even number financially.
Sam Porter, disaster relief director for Oklahoma Baptists, was on hand. He said, “People where I live ask, ‘Why would someone rebuild on ground that is below sea level?’ I answer, ‘Well, someone down there might ask why would you rebuild where you have 57 tornadoes a year? The answer is: it’s home!'” (He got a chorus of amens.)
Sam told the congregation, “There’s a map in the conference room at the Baptist Association of Greater New Orleans with the metro area divided into zones. We Oklahoma Baptists have taken the zone which includes the Ninth Ward, the area around the French Quarter, and Franklin Avenue. Virginia Baptists took this area. But we have been glad to partner with them down here.”
Nichole Bulls was on hand from the Virginia Baptist State Convention to accept our appreciation and to offer up a prayer for the healing of this region and the empowering of the future ministries of this church.
I pointed out to the congregation that on back of the bulletin, the long list of churches that have assisted Port Sulphur Baptist Church are mostly Virginia churches (even though the town or city were not listed). I recognized the names of several from other states, including one from Jasper, Alabama.
“Before Katrina,” I told the church, “many of you felt alone down here. That’s one reason Freddie Arnold and I drive downriver to attend your various functions and to meet with your pastors. We did not want you to feel alone. Now, looking at the long list of church groups that have been here to minister to you and your neighbors, you know you are not alone and never will be again. God’s people from all over this nation have invested in you and your church.”
Pastor Lynn Rodrigue brought a message from John 3 that was evangelistic and Christ-focused. He said, “Jesus was unique, not only in what he did but what he did not do. He was the only person in history who never had to say ‘I’m sorry.’ He was the only one who never asked for forgiveness. The only one never to ask for advice. And the only one who never ever asked anyone to pray for him.”
“Contrast that with us,” Lynn said. “We have to say ‘I’m sorry’ every day. We have to ask God and one another for forgiveness. We ask for advice from one another because there is so much we don’t know. And we desperately need others to pray for us. But Jesus was unique.”
“Some who heard Jesus speak came back saying, ‘Never man spoke like this man.'”
I sat there thinking, Yes, and never man lived like this man. Never man loved like this man. Never man died like this man. Never man rose like this man. Never man ascended like this man. Never man promised like this man.
The Christian life is all about Jesus, friend, make no mistake about that.
Lynn made reference to an article from the Sports Illustrated magazine of November 2001, following the Arizona Diamondbacks’ World Series comeback to defeat the New York Yankees.
“The headline said, ‘Top Ten Comebacks of All Time.’ Naturally, the Diamondbacks’ victory was one of them. And there was Elvis’ comeback in 1968. And humanity’s comeback from the Black Plague of the 14th century when 25 to 40 million died in Europe. There was Harry Truman’s 1948 victory for the presidency when all the polls gave him no chance. Number two in the top ten was Japan and Germany’s comeback from the devastation of World War II to become world economic powers. And number one, the greatest comeback of all time according to Sports Illustrated magazine, was ‘Jesus Christ. A.D. 33. Stuns critics and defies enemies by rising from the dead.”
I sat there listening to Pastor Lynn, smiling at that story. I still recall sitting in the waiting room of the Tire Kingdom in Kenner flipping through the Sports Illustrated when I saw that article. I tore it out (little confession here) and used it in sermons and wrote it up in an article which the Baptist Press later published, doing all I could to get this significant little story out there. It’s not that I doubt if other preachers saw the original article, but if they did, I never saw any evidence of it. I like to think my inserting it into the internet onto the worldwide web might have made the difference. The tipping point, as they say.
It’s not that the Lord Jesus needed the validation of a sports magazine’s endorsement. It’s not that He is any more risen than if they had ignored Him altogether. He is Lord and that’s that, regardless of what any of us or all of us think or say. But, humanly speaking, it felt good to have them acknowledge what God’s people know and hold dear.
After the sermon, to reinforce the evangelistic message, Assistant Pastor Rick erected a whiteboard and gave the plan of salvation, using a black marker. No one sitting there will ever be able to say they have not heard the gospel presented in its clarity; in fact, my hunch is most could now reproduce the same message.
After lunch, a group from Amite Baptist Church fed everyone jambalaya, red beans and rice, salad, and dessert. I pulled up a table on the patio and drew children for the next hour (at the request of Pastor Lynn; I don’t really foist this on people).
Neil, his daughter Abby, and I had left home at 8:30 and it was after 2 pm when we returned. I got some refreshments, watched the last quarter of the football game (alas, the Saints were losing another one!) and took a nap. A friend who is supposed to meet me tomorrow morning woke me up with the phone. “Is there any chance you are at the associational office this afternoon.” I laughed, “Nope. I’m at home.” He said, “Okay” and hung up.
I woke up at 6:30 pm–an hour ago, as I write–and thought it was Monday morning and I had overslept.