Three days before their first big Christmas Eve service, the new pastor's heart sank when he went into the church and saw that the roof had leaked, causing a large area of plaster, about 20 by 8 feet, to fall off the front wall of the sanctuary just behind the pulpit. The pastor cleaned up the mess on the floor, and not knowing what else to do but postpone the Christmas Eve service, headed home. On the way he noticed that a local business was having a flea market sale for charity so he stopped in. One of the items was a beautiful, handmade, ivory colored, crocheted tablecloth exquisitely made with a cross embroidered right in the center. It was just the right size to cover up the hole in the front wall! He bought it and headed back to the church.

It had started to snow. An older woman running from the opposite direction was trying to catch the bus. She missed it. The pastor invited her to wait in the warm church for the next bus 45 minutes later. She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor while he got a ladder, hangers, etc., to put up the tablecloth as a wall tapestry. The pastor could hardly believe how beautiful it looked and how well it covered up the entire problem area!

Then he noticed the woman walking down the center aisle. Her face was white like a sheet. "Pastor," she asked, "where did you get that tablecloth?" The pastor explained. The woman asked him to check the lower right corner to see if the initials, EBG, were crocheted into it. They were. These were the initials of the woman, and she had made this tablecloth 35 years ago, in Austria! The woman could hardly believe it as the pastor told how he had just gotten the tablecloth. The woman explained that before the war she and her husband were well-to-do people in Austria. When the Nazis came, she was forced to leave. Her husband was going to follow her the next week. He was captured, sent to prison and she never saw her husband or her home again. The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth; but she insisted the pastor keep it for the church. The pastor offered to drive her home; that was the least he could do. She lived on the other side of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn for the day for a housecleaning job.

What a wonderful service they had on Christmas Eve! The church was almost full. The service was great. At the end of the service, the pastor and his wife greeted everyone at the door and many said that they would return. One older man, whom the pastor recognized from the neighborhood, continued to sit in one of the pews and stare, and the pastor wondered why he wasn't leaving. The man asked him where he got the tablecloth on the front wall, because it was identical to one that his wife had made years ago when they lived in Austria before the war… and how could there be two tablecloths so much alike? He told the pastor how the Nazis came, how he forced his wife to flee for her safety, and he was supposed to follow her, but he was arrested and put in a prison. He never saw his wife or his home again all the 35 years in between.

The pastor asked the old man if he would allow him to take him for a little ride. They drove to Staten Island and to the same house where the pastor had taken the woman three days earlier. He helped the man climb the three flights of stairs to the woman's apartment, knocked on the door and he saw the greatest reunion he could ever imagine!

Reunions. Has anyone here ever had a great reunion? A reunion with a long-forgotten friend? A long-lost relative? Or maybe a reunion with a loved one with whom you've had a falling-out? Sometimes Valentines Day helps bring about such reunions. Isn't it sweet to be reunited with your Sweetheart after a bitter disagreement? Isn't it comforting to be reunited with a person whom you have had a long-standing grudge with? To finally forgive and let the water run under the bridge? It is wonderful to be REUNITED! A popular song from the early 80's sang "RE-U-NITED, and I feel so good!" How true that is! Reunions can bring us much joy. This Valentines weekend, I want to tell you about a reunion that each one of us is a part of!

It's a reunion with God! In order for there to be a Re-union, there has to be a "Dis-union." And our Bible text makes it pretty clear that there was a falling out between us and God. WE, that's all of us, are called UNGODLY, SINNERS, ENEMIES of God, and POWERLESS!

That's not what we want to hear, is it? That we are UNGODLY? We would like to consider ourselves "godly." Why? Because we acknowledge there is a god! I am godly because I know there is a god, because I am a person who makes this "god" happy, because I am Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, because my kids go to Sunday School, because I am not in jail, because I am nice to my neighbors, because I have tried being a good person. Ever felt that way? Among all this "godliness," however, there is a lack of reverence for the true God, a complete ignoring of what He tells us about Himself in his Word! It is an ungodly trust in ourselves and our own righteousness rather than God's righteousness. It is a complete denial that we have not lived as God wants us to. You and I are ungodly, and we must admit that!

And we're called SINNERS. This doesn't sit well with us either, does it? To "sin" means to "miss the mark." Don't we like to think of ourselves as being right on target, or at the very worst, maybe just a wee-bit-off-course in the matter of living good lives before God and man? As far as God is concerned, however, we don't even come close! We have "missed the mark" in honoring God above all, in obeying authorities, in harming others, in keeping our thoughts pure, in being dishonest, gossiping, and coveting what isn't ours! Our society uses the term "sinner" to describe those who are outwardly evil: drunks, rapists, murderers, jailbirds! But God uses the term to describe you and me on the basis of what is in our hearts!

God even informs us that we have been his ENEMIES. That's a strong statement! Our sins mean we stand in opposition to Him and everything He represents! Does it sit well with you to hear that? Probably not. We like to think of ourselves as being at least on generally friendly terms with God, even if the relationship may not be a very close one. But this isn't how God sees us by nature! He makes us very aware that we are his "enemies"!

But we can do something about that, right? You and I can go to God and fix this all up, can't we? Maybe we can bring him flowers, chocolates, a sweet card, and make up for this all. We can tell Him that we will be faithful to Him from now on - and that should fix everything - get us reunited, shouldn't it? Well, unfortunately, God also calls us POWERLESS. And we don't like to hear that, because we all like to think that we have some strength to boast about. We would like to think we have the power to persuade God to do our bidding, to serve us. The strength to win Him over to our way of thinking, to see the good in us. But as God sees us, we have no strength to seek Him, no strength to serve Him, no strength to save ourselves, no strength to draw his attention to us. We are POWERLESS. This leaves us in more pathetic condition than being lonely on Valentines Day. We are separated from God, need a reunion with Him in the worst way, but are powerless to do anything about it.

One Sunday morning, a small town pastor came to church carrying a rusty, bent, old bird cage, and set it by the pulpit. Eyebrows were raised, and the pastor began to speak: "I was walking through town yesterday when I saw a young boy coming toward me swinging this birdcage. On the bottom of the cage were three little wild birds, shivering with cold and fright, helpless and powerless. I stopped the lad and asked, "What you got there, son?" "Just some old birds," came the reply. "What are you gonna do with them?" I asked. "Take 'em home and have fun with 'em," he answered. "I'm gonna tease 'em and pull out their feathers to make 'em fight. I'm gonna have a real good time." "But you'll get tired of those birds sooner or later. What will you do then?" "Oh, I got some cats," said the little boy. "They like birds. I'll take 'em to them."

The pastor was silent for a moment. "How much do you want for those birds, son?" "Huh?? Why, you don't want them birds, mister. They're just plain old field birds. They don't sing. They ain't even pretty!" "How much?" the pastor asked again. The boy sized up the pastor as if he were crazy and said, "$10?" The pastor took a ten dollar bill from his wallet and placed it in the boy's hand. In a flash, the boy was gone. The pastor carried the cage to the end of the alley where there was a tree and a grassy spot. Setting it down, he opened the door, and gently persuaded the birds out, setting them free." Well, that explained the empty bird cage on the pulpit, and then the pastor began to tell this story:

"One day Satan and Jesus were having a conversation. Satan had just come from the Garden of Eden, and he was gloating and boasting. "Yes, sir, I just caught the world full of people down there. Set me a trap, used bait I knew they couldn't resist. Got 'em all!" "What are you going to do with them?" Jesus asked. Satan replied, "Oh, I'm gonna have fun! I'm gonna teach them how to marry and divorce each other, how to hate and abuse each other, how to drink and smoke and curse. I'm gonna teach them how to invent guns and bombs and kill each other. I'm really gonna have fun!" "And what will you do when you get done with them?" Jesus asked. "Oh, I'll kill 'em," Satan glared proudly. "How much do you want for them?" Jesus asked. "Oh, you don't want those people. They ain't no good. Why, you'll take them and they'll just hate you. They'll spit on you, curse you and kill you. You don't want those people!!" "How much?" Jesus asked again. Satan looked at Jesus and sneered, "All your blood, tears, and your life." Jesus said, "DONE!" Then He paid the price." The pastor picked up the cage and walked from the pulpit.

You and I are like those birds, frightened and powerless. We are the people Satan described: no good, hating God, spitting on Him, cursing, and killing Him. We are ungodly, sinners, enemies, and powerless to do anything about it. We were long separated from God! With no hope of reunion! But sinners, people like us, are the kind of people for whom Christ died! What we wouldn't even consider doing, God did without hesitation because He loved us! He loved us and died for us WHILE we were sinners, ungodly, and enemies of Him! His love is revealed in Christ, whose life of perfect love brought us back to Him! God's love provided the supreme sacrifice for our sins!

We have been RECONCILED, made right with God again! By God's undeserved love for us through Christ, our status as his enemies has been changed! By giving his life on the cross, and rising again, the Savior has removed our sin and with it, the reason for God's hostility toward us! Now God regards us not just as former enemies, not just as friends, but as his own beloved Bride, whom He only sees as perfectly beautiful! We have been REUNITED!

AND IT FEELS SO GOOD! Have you ever seen the commercial for the diamond company, in black and white, where the man and the woman are walking through the Plaza in Venice, surrounded by pigeons? And as they embrace, the man screams out at the top of his lungs, "I love this woman!!" His marriage union with that woman brought so much joy to his life, he had to share it with the world!

We have been reunited with God and it feels so good! We have to share it with the world! We have to rejoice! This isn't an activity we do in quiet or insecurity. We do this out loud for all to see and hear, because we can be perfectly confident of our relationship with God and our salvation! There is no need to doubt, because the reunion has been accomplished by God Himself! Proclaim from the rooftops how much joy this reunion has brought to you! God has loved you to life! Rejoice in how good that feels by loving other people to life! Thank God for it by becoming reunited with the people in your life you are estranged from. Praise God for it by showing others God wants to be reunited with them too! It feels so good!! Amen.

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