Imagine this Photo with Christmas Trees, Candles and You!

The Amazing Day is Coming, Very Soon!

Prime Timers, a St. Martin's Adult Christian Education (A.C.E.) group, also known as an ABF (Adult Bible Fellowship), is for people in the Prime of Life, ages 50-64. We meet in the Parlor near the Church Offices each Sunday from 10:15am to 11:00. We are following a course of study from the United Council of Churches titled The New Testament Community. It's difficult to study in December but we are charging ahead with a new unit entitled "Human Commitment" with readings from Luke and you are invited!

ABF classes will resume January 11...

It's been a great year and the Christmas season brings lots of activity at St. Martin's. Prime Timers will be back in January but why don't you join all of us on Christmas Eve? The church is all decked out in it's Christmas glory, services begin with a Carol service at 2pm, followed by a family service at 3:30, and fellowship in the Parish Hall from 4-6pm with hot chocolate and candy canes! The big service is at 5:30pm. This is traditionally the best attended service on Christmas Eve, come early! Then there are Holy Eucharist's at 8 and 11. All the Eucharist's are preceded by St. Martin's full choir and the wonderful Gloria Dei organ playing traditional songs and carols thirty minutes before the service.

Prime Timers Celebrate Good News!

We celebrate our members Good News at Prime Timers with a $1 contribution to Henny Penny, our Good News chicken. Periodically Henny donates the money she collects to a worthy charity, currently the Amistad Mission in Bolivia. Marty gave thanks that his Mom's 90th birthday party was a great time for all. His Mom is one of five sisters and the surprise for her was that every one of them came for the party!

Shepherds Glorify God

Donn Fullenweider taught class today. He began with a quote from Goethe "The further one advances in experience, the closer one comes to the unfathomable; the more one learns to utilize experience, the more one recognizes that the unfathomable is of no practical value. --Johann Wolfgang von Goethe"

Today's reading is the story from Luke of the shepherds in the field being told of the birth of the Messiah by an angel. (Luke 2:1-20) Donn commented on how angels appear quite often in the bible and how everyone is initially afraid, but the angels are always able to calm everyone down before delivering their message! Providing some background to the book of Luke, did you know that Luke was not a Jew? While Luke always linked Jesus to God's actions in the Old Testament, his backdrop was the larger, secular world of the Roman Empire. Augustus was emperor of the Roman Empire from 31 B.C. to A.D. 14 and he was the ultimate authority in the political, social and religious world into which Jesus was born. Many of Luke's accounts do not square with historical accounts. There is no account of people having to return to their ancestral homes to register, for instance, although there were censuses taken.

Donn is reading a book, The Bible as History, by Werner Keller, and used this to point out that Jesus birthday was not Christmas day, and was not on year one due to the miscalculation in 525 AD by the monk Dionysius Exiguus (died 556 AD) who calculated Jesus was born in 1 BC. Almost all scholars place it on a different date. First, King Herod died in 4 B.C. so if he had the first born killed it had to be before that, and if Jesus was born during a census, there was none taken in the year 1 although the Census of Quirinius occured in 6 A.D.

At any rate, it was the emperor Justinian who in 554 A.D. declared December 25 as the official birthday of Jesus. Donn remarked how many times the Christian Church simply declares things to be so, and so they are. December 25th is just a few days after the Winter Solstice, traditionally a bacchanalia celebrating various Pagan gods. By declaring this the birthday of Jesus a whole different cast is placed on the event.

Donn asked the class to recall Christmas memories and we got a great start by George who described taking his sister's new bike for a spin, hey it was easier to get on! The recent snow in Houston set off several memories, including a children's Christmas pageant that ended with the doors to the church being opened, to snow! It snows so seldom in Houston it was Marty, from New Jersey, who had to tell about the "joys" of shoveling the snow afterwards!

Donn wished everyone, and this includes you, a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holiday season, followed by a short benediction.

The Lesson for Sunday, December 28thst,  is "John the Baptist Proclaims God's Message"

Key Verse:  Luke 3:8

Focus of the Lesson: Making a commitment requires action to accompany verbal assent. What actions may be required to fulfill a commitment? When John took the message to the people about the coming of the Messiah, he challenged them to make a response.

The reading is Luke 3:7-18 This text is from the New International Version. (NIV)

Background Scripture:  Luke 3:1-20

   ⁷John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? ⁸Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. ⁹The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire."

   ¹⁰"What should we do then?" the crowd asked.

   ¹¹John answered, "The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same."

   ¹²Tax collectors also came to be baptized. "Teacher," they asked, "what should we do?"

   ¹³"Don't collect any more than you are required to," he told them. ¹⁴Then some soldiers asked him, "And what should we do?"
 
   He replied, "Don't extort money and don't accuse people falsely—be content with your pay."

   ¹⁵The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ. ¹⁶John answered them all, "I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. ¹⁷His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." ¹⁸And with many other words John exhorted the people and preached the good news to them.

NIV