The Advent Altar at St. Martin's Church

Prime Timers

The Prime Timers were a Bible study group at St. Martin's for eight years. One of the goals of our founder, Jackie Rose, was to have a weekly web page for the group and all the pages are still online here. The group disbanded but the readings below are being kept up to date.

Lectionary readings

The Readings for Sunday, December 6, are from Lectionary Year C, Second Sunday of Advent--Baruch 5:1-9 or Malachi 3:1-4; Canticle 4 or 16; Philippians 1:3-11 and Luke 3:1-6. The text is from the Revised Standard Version w/Apocrypha *

Baruch 5:1-9

¹ Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.

² Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God; put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting; ³ for God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven.

⁴ For God will give you evermore the name, "Righteous Peace, Godly Glory."

⁵ Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height; look toward the east, and see your children gathered from west and east at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that God has remembered them.

⁶ For they went out from you on foot, led away by their enemies; but God will bring them back to you, carried in glory, as on a royal throne.

⁷ For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low and the valleys filled up, to make level ground, so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God.

⁸ The woods and every fragrant tree have shaded Israel at God's command.

⁹ For God will lead Israel with joy, in the light of his glory, with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.

or Malachi 3:1-4

¹ "Behold, I send my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant in whom you delight, behold, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. ² But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? "For he is like a refiner's fire and like fullers' soap; ³ he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, till they present right offerings to the LORD. ⁴ Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD as in the days of old and as in former years.

Canticle 16

Luke 1:68-79

⁶⁸ "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people, ⁶⁹ and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, ⁷⁰ as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, ⁷¹ that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all who hate us; ⁷² to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, ⁷³ the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, ⁷⁴ to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, ⁷⁵ in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life. ⁷⁶ And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, ⁷⁷ to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, ⁷⁸ through the tender mercy of our God, when the day shall dawn upon us from on high ⁷⁹ to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace."

Philippians 1:3-11

³ I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, ⁴ always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, ⁵ thankful for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. ⁶ And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. ⁷ It is right for me to feel thus about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. ⁸ For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. ⁹ And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, ¹⁰ so that you may approve what is excellent, and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, ¹¹ filled with the fruits of righteousness which come through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Luke 3:1-6

¹ In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiber'i-us Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Iturae'a and Trachoni'tis, and Lysa'ni-as tetrarch of Abile'ne, ² in the high-priesthood of Annas and Ca'iaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechari'ah in the wilderness; ³ and he went into all the region about the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. ⁴ As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,

"The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.

⁵ Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth;

⁶ and all flesh shall see the salvation of God."

Thanks to Bible Study Tools for today's text.