On Tuesday, April 20th, 2021, one of the police officers responsible for the murder of George Floyd last May, Derek Chauvin, was found guilty of all three counts on which he was charged.

For some, this decision naturally feels like it matters deeply. For others, it will not feel as naturally consequential. But as Christians, we are called to follow the example of our Savior and incarnate into the world of those around us. We are called to know them, to rejoice with them and mourn with them (Romans 12:15), even in areas where we don’t understand or feel awkward about engaging. The verdict of Derek Chauvin’s guilt is no exception to that call.

So, I want to share some (admittedly limited) thoughts to help you engage with this verdict if you are someone who doesn’t naturally see it as a big deal:

In a talk Bryan Stevenson gave at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, he shared about how, in order to move forward in racial reconciliation in our country, we need to change the narratives we live by around issues of race. We need to change the narratives that teach us to see black and brown men, women and children as inherently 'dangerous' or 'criminal.' We need to change them because if we don’t, things like what happened to George Floyd will continue to happen. We have to address the problem at its root, as Bryan Stevenson suggests in that video, and the root is the narrative of racial difference.

Yesterday was a moment that could start to change some of the narrative which, for so long, has withheld real accountability for police use of force against black men, women and children. How could this verdict help make such a change?

A little context can help get us started.

As a New York Times article points out, only 7 officers have been convicted of murder in fatal police shootings since 2005. Which makes the chance of conviction in a case like Derek Chauvin's somewhere around 1 in 2000.

Think about that…

Only 1 in 2000 times that someone has been killed by police has an officer been convicted of murder (of course not all police killings and trials have been by white officers against black people). You may wonder if that just means justice has been served and there is only a 1 in 2000 likelihood of wrongdoing. But to just push on that idea a little, think about this: if you (or even a group of people) did something 2000 times, what's the likelihood that you only made a mistake doing it once?

For example, try shooting a basketball and see if you can make 1999 shots out of 2000. The odds are not good -- even for professionals.

Likewise, with a belief in human sin (which breaks every part of us, including the broken, sinful narratives we live by around race), we should be surprised if only 1 in 2000 times something goes wrong in human actions. The real odds are that verdicts which correspond to reality are lacking.

Granted, each case has its own unique circumstances and it may feel difficult to understand why this one is significant or why it should say anything about a larger issue. However, part of changing the narratives we live by around issues of race starts with understanding that though each case can be unique, it is also part of a broader pattern of racial sin that leads to individual cases like this one.

Think about it this way:

Just as there are individual experiences of COVID-19 as an illness (some leading to mild sickness, some to severe sickness, some tragically to death), but only one overarching virus (albeit with variants) that gives rise to those individual experiences -- similarly, prejudice and systemic racism are a sin virus that gives rise to individual occasions of sinful, wrongful acts (including among police). Sometimes the sin virus leads to mild pain, sometimes to more severe pain and sometimes, as it did with George Floyd, tragically to death. But the underlying virus for each of those individual situations is still the same.

Consequently, we can see that actions like Derek Chauvin’s are both individual and tied to larger, underlying problems of sin. Which means that something like what happened to George Floyd was not an isolated incident that grew out of nothing. Rather, it was an individual manifestation of a larger problem.

As such, though this is just one case, it is, for many black men, women and children (and those deeply committed to them), much more than just one case. It is more consequential.

It makes a difference.

It makes a difference because it pushes back on the narrative of racial difference as a rare affirmation (a 1 in 2000 kind of affirmation) that injustice was committed against a black man and that there are consequences for it. It pushes back on the narrative of racial difference by affirming judicially that black lives do, in fact, matter. It pushes back on the narrative of racial difference as an acknowledgement that prejudice is at work in our society, that it is deadly, and that it still needs to be addressed.

That barely scratches the surface of why this verdict is significant. But I hope that even this limited perspective can help some of us start incarnating into the experience of others who do feel the significance of it.

That's the work we're called to as followers of Christ. May God give us the humility, self-sacrifice and commitment to do it.