The Light of the World, by William Holman Hunt, 1851-53, the original work is in Keble College, Oxford, England. This image was hugely popular at the time and Hunt painted another version in 1900 that toured the world and is now in St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

Here is the painting at St. Paul's. Our leader George notes how the door is overgrown with weeds, indicating how few people respond to Jesus' "knock." There are images without the weeds, and you can find them by searching for "Jesus Knocking".

This is a "Jesus Knocking" example courtesy of the St. Takla Haymanout Coptic Orthodox Church in Alexandria, Egypt. No information was available on the artist.

Happy New Year from the Prime Timers!

We are a Christian Education group at St. Martin's for Episcopalians aged fifty and above. If you are near the Parlor in between the 9:15 and 11:00am services, come on in, you are invited! We follow a course of study based on the Revised Common Lectionary, the three year cycle of readings from the Bible you hear at every church service. Next week's readings are right here, at the bottom of the page.

Prime Timer Good News!

A Prime Timer tradition is hearing what others are up to, and charging a dollar for the privilege! We donate the money we collect to charities supported by the church. Murray gave thanks for the New Year and George praised God for an inspiration he got during the 9am service for an engineering project!

Baptism of Jesus

George Laigle led the Prime Timers as we read the traditional Scriptures surrounding Jesus baptism. Class wanted to know more about the relation between John the Baptist and Jesus. Click here for an interesting article about this. John and Jesus were cousins, John the older. While their baptism rituals were different, Jesus endorsed John's baptism of repentance by allowing himself to be baptized by John. From Wikipedia, "John is regarded as a prophet in Christianity, Islam, the Bahá'í Faith, and Mandaeism." Both John and Jesus taught by example.

Our Psalm today is number 29, a Psalm of David, praising God and describing His mighty works. Class made mention of a news article around the death of North Korean dictator Kim Jung Il, where people came for cataract surgery given by donated services from Western doctors. When these people were given their sight back instead of thanking the doctors they turned to the poster of Kim, got down on their knees and thanked him. As the reporter said, it is possible that these people were simply very alert to the cameras present and knew that the authorities would be watching, but nonetheless it shows the power of fear as a motivating factor.

Finally, we noted the way some Episcopal priests are being accepted into the Catholic church. They were accepted despite being married! Someone said that this is a way around celibacy, just become an Episcopal priest for a number of years, get married and then convert to Catholicism! We noted that there probably won't be a forty year old Pope any time soon.

Roy A. Harrisville, III, is a distinguished Lutheran pastor. He served as senior pastor at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Menomonie, Wisconsin most recently. From our class notes, he has written:
“Repentance, baptism, and humility were obediently embraced by this Son of God at the beginning of his ministry and consummated on Golgotha. His baptism by John in the Jordan was a foretaste of his baptism in death and resurrection. By the power of his godhead, which once he submerged for humanity’s sake, the beloved
children of God are now assured that their baptisms, though deadly to the old life, will issue in eternal blessings.”

Linda gave a short prayer to end today's class.

Lectionary readings

The Readings for Sunday, January 15th are from Lectionary Year Two, Epiphany 2-B, "Come and See": 1 Samuel 3:1-10 (11-20); Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 and John 1:43-51. The text this week is from the New Revised Standard Version.

1 Samuel 3:1-10 (11-20)

¹Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.

² At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; ³the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. ⁴Then the Lord called, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ and he said, ‘Here I am!’ ⁵and ran to Eli, and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’ But he said, ‘I did not call; lie down again.’ So he went and lay down. ⁶The Lord called again, ‘Samuel!’ Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’ But he said, ‘I did not call, my son; lie down again.’ ⁷Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. ⁸The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, ‘Here I am, for you called me.’ Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. ⁹Therefore Eli said to Samuel, ‘Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” ’ So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

¹⁰ Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ And Samuel said, ‘Speak, for your servant is listening.’ ¹¹Then the Lord said to Samuel, ‘See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. ¹²On that day I will fulfil against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. ¹³For I have told him that I am about to punish his house for ever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. ¹⁴Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering for ever.’

¹⁵ Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. ¹⁶But Eli called Samuel and said, ‘Samuel, my son.’ He said, ‘Here I am.’ ¹⁷Eli said, ‘What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.’ ¹⁸So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, ‘It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.’

¹⁹ As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. ²⁰And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the Lord.

Psalm 139:1-5, 12-17

To the leader. Of David. A Psalm.

¹ O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
² You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
³ You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
⁴ Even before a word is on my tongue,
O Lord, you know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.

¹² even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
¹⁷ How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

¹² ‘All things are lawful for me’, but not all things are beneficial. ‘All things are lawful for me’, but I will not be dominated by anything. ¹³‘Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food’, and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is meant not for fornication but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. ¹⁴And God raised the Lord and will also raise us by his power. ¹⁵Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Should I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! ¹⁶Do you not know that whoever is united to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For it is said, ‘The two shall be one flesh.’ ¹⁷But anyone united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. ¹⁸Shun fornication! Every sin that a person commits is outside the body; but the fornicator sins against the body itself. ¹⁹Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? ²⁰For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.

John 1:43-51

⁴³ The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, ‘Follow me.’ ⁴⁴Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. ⁴⁵Philip found Nathanael and said to him, ‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ ⁴⁶Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’ Philip said to him, ‘Come and see.’ ⁴⁷When Jesus saw Nathanael coming towards him, he said of him, ‘Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!’ ⁴⁸Nathanael asked him, ‘Where did you come to know me?’ Jesus answered, ‘I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.’ ⁴⁹Nathanael replied, ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!’ ⁵⁰Jesus answered, ‘Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.’ ⁵¹And he said to him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.’

NRSV