Mid-Morning Song

Acts 2:15
       "For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day."

All the ugliness of sin was whipped upon Him
He carried that cross and died for all of us

Mid-morning my Jesus was crucified
Mid-morning all of creation writhed
Then storms and earthquakes split apart the earth
In the rumbling thunder was heard the fear of The Lord

Then the shaking awestruck Roman soldier said
Truly this was the son of God

Huddled and afraid they obeyed what He said and waited, waited
All 120 prayed day after day and longed again to see His face

Mid-morning was the mighty rushing wind
Mid-morning on the Day of Pentecost
It was the middle of the morning when the church was born
Then thousands obeyed in the awesome fear of The Lord

It's mid-morning now do you see?  
       It's mid-morning now for you and for me
              Repent right now before it's too late
                      Enter into God's kingdom at the straight gate

In Jesus' Name!

--bro. tim pickl
Tuesday May 16, 2006 A.D.  

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Matthew 27

[54] Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.

DIVISIONS OF THE DAY AND NIGHT. For the Romans, the daylight hours were divided into twelve hours (hora, -ae), beginning at sunrise around 6 a. m. (= ante meridiem, "before noon") until 6 p. m. (= post meridiem, "after noon"). Thus, the "third hour of the day" (tertia hora diei) is equivalent to our 9 o'clock in the morning, while the "tenth hour" is our 4 o'clock in the afternoon. As midday lunch followed by a nap (meridiatio) was at the sixth hour (sexta hora), you can see how the idea of a siesta was (and still is!) a Roman custom.

The night-time hours were divided into four vigiliae or "watches," each of which was three hours long. So, the first watch (prima vigilia) ran from 6 to 9 p. m. , the secunda vigilia from 9 to midnight, the tertia vigilia from midnight to 3 a. m. , and the quarta vigilia from 3 to sunrise. Obviously, the exactness of the time was generally not as important to the Romans as it is for us, nor did they have mechanical devices that could measure time very accurately. It generally sufficed for them to know the general hour by their own "inner clock." There were, however, such devices as a sundial (solarium, introduced ca. 280 B.C.)--obviously only useful during sunlight--and a short-term water clock (similar in principle to a sand hourglass, first introduced at Rome in 159 B.C.) called a clypsedra from an originally Greek word.

http://www.sta.cathedral.org/depts/tongues/Latin/calendar.html