Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

The story is told of two goats that met each other on a narrow ledge just wide enough for one goat to pass. One goat was heading one direction. The other goat was heading the opposite direction. The two goats faced each other and wondered what they would do. There really seemed to be no solution. They could not back up since that would be too dangerous. They could not go around each other as the ledge was too narrow. If the goats had no more sense than most typical humans, they probably would have just begun butting each other until one fell over the ledge, but goats have a lot more sense than that. What they did was that one goat laid down and let the other goat walk over him.

That’s a cute story but there’s a lot of Biblical Truth in that story as well. And it’s some Biblical Truth that finds application in what we did earlier as we baptized Tatiana. It’s some Biblical Truth that holds not just for Tatiana, but for each and every one of us. No one may have seen it – and you didn’t see it because it didn’t physically happen – but through baptism, Tatiana laid down.

We’re back to Peter again today. Remember last Sunday we celebrated that Peter finally got
something right when he confessed to Jesus, “You are the Christ. You are the Son of the Living God.”
Well, that was then and today is now. Today we see Peter again in one of his less than finest moments. You see, Jesus the Lamb of God, had just revealed to His disciples that He had come face-to-face on a narrow ledge with the devil and even though He could have butted the devil with all His power and all His force and would have been victorious, Jesus instead was going to lie down and allow the devil to trample Him into death and the grave, only to finally instead trample and defeat the devil by rising from the dead. That’s when Peter piped up: “Never, Lord! That’s not acceptable! We will never let that happen to You! And if they’re too chicken, I will never let that happen to You!”

Suddenly the scene changed. No longer was it Jesus and the devil standing face-to-face on that narrow ledge. Now it was Jesus and Peter face-to-face on that narrow ledge. Now it was two conflicting religious belief systems face-to-face on that narrow ledge. And this was one time when Jesus would not submit, when Jesus would not lie down. Not only did He very strongly rebuke Peter, but He went on to explain that the way of discipleship is the way of submission, the way of laying down, the way that’s opposite to the way of the world.

And that’s what happened out there at that fountain. Tatiana came face-to-face with Jesus and He turned her life upside down. She learned the lesson Peter learned that day, the lesson that all of us followers of Jesus Christ supposedly learn, that lesson of yielding ourselves to Jesus, of not handing to Jesus our plans and purposes but rather being open to hear, to accept, and to follow Jesus’ plans and purposes for us.

St. Paul was one who could speak from experience on that matter. You remember Paul. His given name was Saul and his parents raised him right. They gave him the best education. They gave him the best heritage. They instilled a love within him for everything Jewish, especially their concept of the long-anticipated Messiah to ride into town on a great white war-horse and put those nasty, demanding Romans in their place. Then along comes this itinerant preacher named Jesus who attracted a large following of people claiming that He was the Messiah, but He sure didn’t live up to the image of the Messiah that Saul had been taught, but this Jesus wouldn’t go away and His followers wouldn’t go away, so one by one, Saul began to arrest and execute the followers of Jesus until that one day when the scene changed, when he was on a great war horse looking for more followers of Jesus when he was knocked off that horse by an invisible power, when he was blinded and when the Lord Jesus Himself made him lay down [Acts 9]. Saul learned the lesson of submission, even changing his name to Paul to signify the change within in. And it was Paul who wrote those words of our Second Reading today [Romans 12:9-21] about the upside down world of followers of Jesus Christ: about hating evil and clinging to what is good; of honoring others above ourselves; of serving the Lord; of sharing and blessing and rejoicing and mourning; of associating with people of low position; of doing right in the eyes of everyone; of allowing the Lord to repay while we take care of the physical needs of people; of overcoming evil with good.

And that day on Calvary’s Cross, Jesus overcame evil with good. Some would say that Jesus should have conquered the devil in a different way, in a more powerful way, in a more manly way, but on that narrow ledge called Golgotha, Jesus came face-to-face with the devil and as the devil worked the most unimaginable evil against Jesus, Jesus simply prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” [Luke 23:34].

It sounds like Jesus is talking about me. It sounds like Jesus is talking about you. And He is!

Every once in a while we also realize how off-base we are, how we have been the one doing the trampling, forcing our wills and plans upon God, instead of allowing Jesus to trample us and make us into what He wants us to be. That’s why week after week we confess our sins to God, our Heavenly Father. That’s why week after week we ask Jesus to forgive us and to feed us with His own Body and Blood Which overcame evil with good. That’s why week after week we ask God’s Holy Spirit to help us renounce the devil and all his works and all his ways in our lives, denying ourselves and taking up our cross and following Jesus, following Jesus because He has trampled the devil for us, because in the end the devil was forced to submit to Jesus and he still must.

Today, through the waters of Holy Baptism, Tatiana visibly did what each of us needs to do daily. She bowed her head and allowed her God to claim her as His own, to yield her spirit to His, to receive His forgiveness, to receive His power to lie down before Him every day of the rest of her life, no matter how upside down that may seem at the moment. And Tatiana, like Paul and Peter and Jesus, invites each of us to do the same, to say, “Have Thine Own Way, Lord.”

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Pastor Christopher Schaar
Historic First Lutheran Church of Pasadena