Christ is all the Christmas New Orleans has

I checked the calendar the other day and it seems we're having Christmas this year. When all of your planning, thinking, and doing revolves around rebuilding and starting over, things like Christmas sneak up on you. I love Christmas and anxiously look forward to it each year. This year, Christmas has been an afterthought for many and another reminder of just how much this city and it's citizens have lost. What is usually a season of joy has been a point of depression for many. True, there are a few lighted trees here and there, but the majority of the city remains unchanged as people try to put there lives back together. New Orleans is a city that has had the commercialism of Christmas stripped away. All that's left is a baby bedded down among livestock, born to a poor family with no place to lay their head and soon to be displaced far from home. In a city desperately looking for hope, it will not be found in it's mayor, city council, state government, FEMA, or even generous people, but in our God and Savior humbly in a manger, vulnerable on a cross, and victorious from the grave. Christ is the only hope for New Orleans and this Christmas season that message has never rang more true.