December 28, 2025 · Rev. Derek van Gulden · Luke 2:21-36
A young farmer in a snowed-in Vermont church once taught Rev. Derek van Gulden to keep it short, and this sermon does. Simeon and Anna join Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and the Magi in a line of unlikely people God chose to recognize who this child was; we all take our own time to notice.
Transcript
One of the first churches I served in was a very small rural church on a dirt road in Vermont. Sixteen members and after two months we were up to thirty two members. We had a really bad snowstorm one Sunday. It was Saturday night into Sunday. No one showed up, but I saw tractor trails going up to the front of the church, so I followed him. We had a young farmer. He was actually forty one, who had inherited his parents farm just two months before him when they passed. He was a very quiet man, and when I walked in the door, there he was sitting where he usually does in the back pew. And I looked at him and said, what do you want to do? Because God says or Jesus says, wherever two or more are here, we are present. So let's do it. So we did it. And at the end, I sat down with him and said, what did you think? And he says, you know, pastor, in the summertime, the cows, they graze and sometimes they all come into the barn to eat. I don't feed those two that come in everything. You didn't need to do the same with me.
It's a great lesson learned in this passage. Today we hear of Simeon, and if we read on in that passage, you'd hear about Anna, an older woman who would pray every day at the temple and have the same reaction to seeing Jesus, that she could now die because she had seen the Savior of the world. The two of them are a continuation from the Nativity. a continuation of people that come from very outside. They come from outside of civilization, not civilization. Society. I'll get it right. And yet these are the people that God chose to notice who this child was.
So first we had Mary and Joseph, very unlikely couple to have the Son of God or God to enter into God's created world incarnate through through Jesus. We had the angels calling out to the shepherds, who, though the shepherds were not usually welcome in the villages because they smelled. But the shepherds cared for the wealth of the community. They were considered the lowest part of that community, but they cared for the wealth of it because from those sheep came what? Milk, cheese? Meat, clothing. The bigger the herd, the more wealth the community had. And yet shepherds were always stay outside the gate. And they were also extremely brave because they protected those sheep from everything and everyone.
And then we'll hear next week about the wise men coming. Coming from different parts of the world. Not Jewish Gentiles. There's lots of different names given to them. They were considered kings or they were considered well educated people or astrologers. They're called the Magi. They came to represent the rest of the world at that time.
And then when it was time for Jesus to be blessed after eight days of birth, they go to the temple. And here is Simeon, who's been waiting his whole life and holds the baby and knows exactly who he is and gives thanks and praise. And if you read a little bit further, you'll see Anna, who is always there every day praying. Hold the child saying the same thing. It's this continuation.
Somebody asked me once, why do they keep showing us this? Because we all take a different amount of time. To learn and to pay attention. Amen.