Ken Winter
Advent – We Three Kings (Balthazar’s Story)

If you would prefer to listen to this post as a podcast, CLICK HERE.

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Introduction to this post:

This is the fourth of this year’s weekly Advent posts. Those of you who have followed the blog for more than a year know that it is my annual practice to post a weekly story for the season of Advent about the incarnational birth of Jesus. My hope is that the stories have become a part of your Advent tradition as you remember and celebrate the Good News of the advent of our Lord and Savior.

This year’s posts are as follows:

Week #1 - November 27th: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (Joseph’s Story)

Week #2 - December 4th: Away in a Manger (Achim’s Story)

Week #3 – December 11th: Silent Night (Moshe’s Story)

This week - December 18th: We Three Kings (Balthazar’s Story)

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My name is Balthazar and I am a lifelong student of the science of the stars….

Advent – We Three Kings (Balthazar’s Story)
Ken Winter
Advent – Silent Night (Moshe’s Story)

If you would prefer to listen to this post as a podcast, CLICK HERE.

Introduction to this post:

This is the third of this year’s weekly Advent posts. Those of you who have followed the blog for more than a year know that it is my annual practice to post a weekly story for the season of Advent about the incarnational birth of Jesus. My hope is that the stories have become a part of your Advent tradition as you remember and celebrate the Good News of the advent of our Lord and Savior.

This year’s posts are as follows:

Week #1 - November 27th: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (Joseph’s Story)

Week #2 - December 4th: Away in a Manger (Achim’s Story)

This week – December 11th: Silent Night (Moshe’s Story)

December 18th: We Three Kings (Balthazar’s Story)

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I am a shepherd named Moshe.

Advent – Silent Night (Moshe’s Story)
Ken Winter
Advent – Away in a Manger (Achim’s Story)

If you would prefer to listen to this post as a podcast, CLICK HERE.

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Introduction to this post:

This is the second of this year’s weekly Advent posts. Those of you who have followed the blog for more than a year know that it is my annual practice to post a weekly story for the season of Advent about the incarnational birth of Jesus. My hope is that the stories have become a part of your Advent tradition as you remember and celebrate the Good News of the advent of our Lord and Savior.

This year’s posts are as follows:

Last week - November 27th: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (Joseph’s Story)

This week - December 4th: Away in a Manger (Achim’s Story)

December 11th: Silent Night (Moshe’s Story)

December 18th: We Three Kings (Balthazar’s Story)

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My name is Achim. My family and I live here in Bethlehem, the town of our ancestor David, the shepherd king….

Advent – Away in a Manger (Achim’s Story)
Ken Winter
Advent - O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (Joseph’s ...

If you would prefer to listen to this post as a podcast, CLICK HERE.

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A preface to this post:

Dear family, friends and faithful readers of this blog,

This week is my 321st weekly blog post—not a huge number for many, but for me it has been a sharing of my heart with you. Those of you who have followed the blog for more than a year know that it is my annual practice to post a weekly stories for the season of Advent about the incarnational birth of Jesus. My hope is that the stories have become a part of your Advent tradition as you remember and celebrate the Good News of the advent of our Lord and Savior.

This year, i am repeating four of the weekly Advent posts from 2019 for two reasons. First, i have made changes to the posts, and have a higher quality audio recording of the posts in the event you would like to listen to them on audio—feel free to click the link above to do so.

The second reason is that i will be bringing my season of posting to an end as of the end of December. As many of you know, i have been diagnosed with metastatic (stage 4) lung cancer and am now being placed on home hospice care. Thus, it has become more difficult for me to produce these post. I hope and pray you receive these as my gift and expression of love to you.

The remaining five posts are as follows:

November 27th: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (Joseph’s Story)

December 4th: Away in a Manger (Achim’s Story)

December 11th: Silent Night (Moshe’s Story)

December 18th: We Three Kings (Balthazar’s Story)

December 25th: A Christmas Celebration (My Story)

Advent - O Come, O Come, Emmanuel (Joseph’s Story)
Ken Winter
His Dwelling Place

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What does it mean to live in the shelter of the Most High and to find rest in His shadow? This is how Psalm 91 begins—a psalm many attribute to Moses. i believe that attribution is fitting. Moses is the one who carried Jehovah God’s instructions to His people for constructing the Tabernacle in the wilderness. He witnessed the fabrication of each part and completed the last of the work.

The Tabernacle was completed exactly as the Lord specified and was erected on the first anniversary of Israel’s departure from Egypt. That day, the Lord’s glorious presence descended upon it, covering and filling it with His awesome glory. His presence, previously seen in the guiding pillar of cloud, now took residence within His dwelling place among the people. From that day on, as His Spirit led, the people moved forward; when His Spirit remained in the Tabernacle, the people encamped.

His Dwelling Place

No Detail Is Too Small

No Detail Is Too Small

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It was the fifth day of the week – Thursday – and the 14th day of Nissan on the Hebrew calendar. The Passover Festival was to begin at dusk with the Passover Seder and continue for seven days, as it still does today. In preparation for the festival, all leavening (Chametz) was to be removed from the Jewish households. Leaven symbolized corruption or sin, so for the seven days of Passover, Jews ate only unleavened bread.(1) Often, any Chametz remaining in the household the day before Passover was removed and destroyed by burning. That morning in Jerusalem the pungent odor of burning Chametz would have permeated the air in and around the city. Every household was completing its preparations.

The preparations were so important to Jesus that He sent His two most trusted disciples:(2) Peter (the one upon whom He would build His church)(3) and John (the one to whom He would entrust the care of His mother).(4) Notice that when Jesus instructed them to go and prepare the meal, they wisely asked Him for specific instructions. Both men would have known what preparations were required under the Law. Both had traveled to Jerusalem many times before for the observance of Passover. Both were leaders. It would have been very easy for them to receive instruction from Jesus to “go” and then head off to do what they believed was right. How often do we attempt to go off and do God’s work in our own way? How often do we fail to ask Him the “how” question? How often do we make our own plan and ask Jesus to bless it instead of asking Him for His plan, so we can join Him in His activity?

If You Will, You Can

If You Will, You Can

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The Bible is filled with many people who face impossible situations beyond their control. They include Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego when faced with the fiery furnace, and Daniel in the lions’ den. They also include an unnamed leper we encounter in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke who faced the hopelessness of his terminal disease.

i believe the omission of his name is purposeful. As a part of the nameless crowd, he could be any one of us, free from any of the preconceived notions that might come with knowing his background.

Allow me to tell his story in the first person as if i were him—because parts of his story may truly be mine … and perhaps you, too, share in his story.

Plucking the Grain

Plucking the Grain

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 On one particular day, as Jesus and His disciples were walking through a grainfield, the religious leaders accused Jesus and His disciples of an act of “Sabbath defiance.” The Pharisees accused them of “wantonly disregarding the rules” of Sabbath by plucking off the heads of grain, rubbing them between their hands, and eating the grain.

Thus we see the clash—one that continues today—the religious traditions of men versus an authentic relationship with a Holy God.

Whose Counsel Will We Seek?

Whose Counsel Will We Seek?

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Though the term “fake news” was coined in the late 1800s and the birth of the digital age has greatly multiplied its prevalence in our day-to-day world, the reality is that it dates back to the Garden of Eden. Satan was the original editor-in-chief of “fake news,” and he still is! That’s why there is only one reliable source for all that we need to know in making our decisions.

No Matter Where We Are

No Matter Where We Are

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Two Israelite men, Eldad and Medad, were part of a group of seventy elders that God had directed Moses to assemble.(1) We don’t know from which tribe these men originated. There is no further information about them other than this one reference in Scripture. For some unknown reason these two men, who were probably brothers, had not gone to the Tabernacle with the rest of the elders; they were still in the camp. However, when the Holy Spirit came upon the elders, He came upon all of the elders, including these two who weren’t in the tabernacle. Oh, and isn’t it interesting that theirs are the only names we know out of that group of seventy? Perhaps the Lord has a lesson for us to learn from these two men.

Put to the Test

Put to the Test

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Every student knows that once you have been given instruction, you will be given an opportunity to apply that instruction or demonstrate how well you have retained it by putting it to the test. Those tests come in a variety of forms.

  • There are pop quizzes—a few short questions placed before you unexpectedly to test your grasp of an idea, principle, or fact soon after it has been presented to you.

  • There are tests—periodic exams given at the conclusion of a defined period of teaching, i.e. weekly, end-of-chapter, etc.

  • And, there are exams, including the mother of all exams—the final exam—through which you are tested on instruction you have received over an extended period, i.e. a semester or academic year.

The teachers i always appreciated the most were the ones that forewarned…

Love Your Neighbor

Love Your Neighbor

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“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind. And love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew and Mark both write that this was Jesus’s response when the expert in religious law asked Him which was the most important commandment in the law of Moses.(1) Luke writes that the expert in religious law told Jesus that they were the most important commandments in response to Jesus’s question, and He affirmed him. If the Spirit of God impressed all three Gospel writers to include this dialogue, it is well worth our paying attention.

Interestingly, Luke goes on to include the continuation of that conversation between the lawyer and Jesus.(2) Knowing that he was to love God without  limitation and love his neighbor to the same degree that he loved himself, the lawyer found the need to define who his neighbor was. i believe there are two reasons why he sought that clarification.

The Power of God Can’t Be Bought

The Power of God Can’t Be Bought

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Four years had passed since the Holy Spirit had been given to the Jews.(1) “A great wave of persecution” had begun on the day that Stephen was killed.(2) It swept over the church, causing many believers, except the apostles, to scatter throughout Judea and Samaria. Despite this dispersion, the church continued to grow. The apostles remained in Jerusalem for a season to shepherd the still-growing church through her infancy, despite threats from the religious leaders and the persecution directed toward the other believers. It is very possible that the initial persecution was primarily aimed at the Hellenistic Jewish believers, as was the case with Stephen.

Philip, the second of the seven Hellenistic Jewish leaders selected to minister to the widows, was directed by God to go to Samaria.  Jesus had previously prohibited His apostles from going there.(3) However, now the Lord was inviting Philip to enter into the labor He had begun about seven years earlier through His encounter with the woman at the well.(4) Philip was not only to declare God’s Word but also to demonstrate God’s power through miracles.

Who Gave Jesus the Right?

Who Gave Jesus the Right?

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It was Tuesday.(1) Jesus had made His triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Sunday and had cleared out the temple on Monday. The leading priests, teachers and elders were all still stinging from His rebukes the day before. Indignant and combative, there was no question they were out for Jesus’ blood. Up until Monday, they had been fearful of what Jesus was doing and had viewed Him as a challenger to their authority. But His actions on Monday had completely undermined their authority. By shutting down their financial enterprise, Jesus had demonstrated a flagrant disregard for their position. Their fear was now overshadowed by unadulterated hatred. They were now singularly focused on His destruction, trailing Him like bloodhounds driven by hate.

Who Dared to Anoint Jesus?

Who Dared to Anoint Jesus?

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Our actions are often an accurate reflection of our thoughts about Jesus and the nature of our relationship with Him. But an even more telling indicator is our inaction or our failure to act. Such was the case one night in the home of Simon the Pharisee, who had invited Jesus to dine with him.

We’re not told Simon’s purpose for inviting Jesus into his home. We don’t know if Simon was a sincere seeker like Nicodemus—wanting to truly get to know Jesus, or whether he had some ulterior motive in mind. Regardless, he extended an invitation to Jesus, and Jesus chose to accept. Remember, nothing about Jesus’ journey was random; it was a part of the Father’s plan for Jesus to dine with Simon that night.

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