“Snap, placement, kick by Hartley, and it is - AND IT'S GOOD! IT'S GOOD! IT'S GUH- HUH HOOD! Pigs have flown! Hell has frozen over! The Saints are on their way to the Super Bowl!” Jim Henderson’s voice cracking announcement came after Garrett Hartley kicked a 40 yard field goal to put the New Orleans Saints over the Minnesota Vikings in OT. Since then, the Saints went on to Miami to defeat New Orleans’ native son, Peyton Manning, and his Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV. World media has taken notice of this Saints team and has seen their championship season as something much more, as if perhaps Hell has actually frozen over. The New Orleans Saints Super Bowl victory has taken on almost mythological proportions, a sort of Brothers Grimm fairy tale where the oft ridiculed, tragically abused underdog is finally fitted with the glass slipper (or as in this case a Muses Red Slipper float on the Lombardi Gras parade). The Saints, and specifically Drew Brees (Disneyland, Letterman, Oprah), has emerged as a newly crowned Cinderella *. Why has this story captured national, even world, attention**?
The underdog story in general resonates with most of humanity, but the Saints victory is something more than just that. The Saints and New Orleans have briefly captured the world stage because of the fact that just a few years earlier the city was a disaster zone and people were seriously considering whether the city was viable and even worth being rebuilt. The Saints organization received the same sort of questioning. In fact, the things that happened in her Superdome after the hurricane became equated with the devastation and subsequent mismanagement of that hellhound named Katrina. While it seemed to some to be foolishness to rebuild New Orleans, a city partially built below sea level and surrounded by water, the Saints were equally thrown aside as useless, perennial losers on the NFL stage (symbolically surrounded by water themselves from the tears of thousands of loyal fans). However, the city and the sports team refused to die or accept the disrespect they received and they both came back as viable and vibrant against all the odds and naysayers. While the New Orleans area was slowly regrouping and rebuilding, the 43 year old Ugly Duckling Saints also began to show signs that she was about to emerge as the beautiful swan she really always was. The fairy tale was unfolding, the temperature in Hell seemed to be dropping and the first real change of wind came in the form of a Drew Brees from the west. 
Why Brees? Well, because Brees, like New Orleans, was himself a devastated cast off. For all intents and purposes he had been let go from the San Diego Chargers after suffering a career ending shoulder injury trying to recover a ball. There was only a 25% chance he would ever recover to play football again. However, Drew Brees refused to let his career die or accept the disrespect he received from other NFL teams (only the Dolphins and Saints offered him a starting QB contract). 
Through his personal recovery and persistence he became a poster boy of what was also happening in the New Orleanian recovery around him. He saw himself in New Orleans and in turn New Orleans saw herself in him. It’s kind of a love story actually, and everyone knows that when two people are in love what happens to one happens to the other. So, when Brees and the Saints won the honor and glory afforded a Super Bowl champ the entire city of New Orleans felt that same honor and respect. When the world saw these two so madly in love and how they shared the glory freely with each other, all the jaded and jilted lovers the world over took notice. The world knew how New Orleans had been devastated and apparently cursed by forces beyond her control, but now they also knew she had still been loved through it all, not only by Brees and the Saints but by her people as well.
So while the forces of Hell had once been allowed by Almighty God to inflict injury and devastation, those fires now seem a little bit cooler as the Saints broadcast a worldwide message that it is possible to recover from whatever has brought you low and held you down. The essence of this message is bigger than football, it is bigger than New Orleans, it is even bigger than Hell itself; the truth is that God through His saints has a message of recovery for the world. This is just a mini-story that is a shadow of the big love story, His-Story, and it is no a fairy tale. When those forces of Hell are finally stopped cold and His saints do come marching in, there is a coming glory and a trophy that will never fade. Having been made a saint through Him I believe that one day, through the power of Jesus, we saints truly will freeze Hell. For all you doubters and skeptics out there… hey, the Saints just won the Super Bowl!!! 
* By the way, calling Drew Brees a Cinderella seems appropriate in a city that celebrated her Saints’ NFC championship victory by having men parade through the streets in dresses (in honor of the late local sports announcer Buddy Diliberto who said he’d wear a dress if the Saints ever made it to the Super Bowl). Wha??
** 1 in 3 Americans watched Super Bowl XLIV, breaking a 27 year old record for viewership previously held by the final episode of M*A*S*H.
