Today we’re supposed to glean from the greatness of Esther, but the biblical book of Esther is a very strange book. In many ways, it is the Bible’s version of an old-fashioned, Dudley Dooright melodrama. It has Snidely Whiplash bad guys conspiring to kill good guys by impaling them on poles 75 feet high. It has good people doing virtuous things in difficult times. Most importantly, it has a beautiful orphan, a Cinderella maiden lavishly embraced by the single most powerful king in the known world. And at the end of the story, the good guys win, all the bad guys get killed, and a huge victory party is held every year thereafter to remember it all. It is a rocking, action packed story, but it sure isn’t a very religious book. Frankly, I’m not exactly sure what sort of greatness we’re supposed to glean here. The name of God is never once used in the book. No one worships, sacrifices, has any sort of apocalyptic vision or experiences even the tiniest miracle in the entire story. There is a veiled awareness of God but very little concern for God’s Law, proper morality or Jewish dietary law. There is fasting, but no specific mention of prayer. There are heroes, but the two primary heroes in the story do not always act admirably, at least according to our standards. Sometimes they actually seem pretty bloodthirsty, evil, vengeful and violent themselves. The book of Esther is so very strange, as a matter of fact, that for the first seven centuries of the church, not one commentary was written on the book! John Calvin so disliked the story of Esther he never once preached a sermon from it nor did he ever include it in any of his commentaries. Martin Luther actually denounced it, saying he “wished it had not come to us at all, for its too many heathen unnaturalities.” Weird!
In order to properly understand and apply this book, we need to understand the full historical context into which it was written. Understanding the historical period involved is an essential part of understanding the overall teaching and gleaning any lessons from it.
This book was written many, many years after the Jewish people had been carried away into exile for their disobedience and unfaithfulness. Empires had come and gone and, while some of the Jews had returned to rebuild Jerusalem under the decree of the pagan King Cyrus of Persia, many remained in exile in what, by Esther’s time, had become the great and terrible Medo-Persian Empire. The Medo-Persian Empire was an absolutely massive, powerful, terrible domain and many Jews had become so completely absorbed into this colossal empire that very little of their Jewish heritage or practices remained. While they retained their Jewish one-God focus and at least some of their identity, as we can see in this story, their adherence to all the precise details of the Hebrew covenant faith had faded away for many of them. While the violent struggles between the Jewish people and many of their age-old enemies still remained, many of the exiled Hebrew people had settled in nicely under their Medo-Persian overlords.
One of those people was a good Jew named Mordecai. Mordecai was a good, generous man and a prominent Jewish businessman in Susa, the fortress capitol of the empire during the reign of powerful Medo-Persian King Xerxes. But the action in our story begins when, at one point in Mordecai’s life, the great King Xerxes got mad at his queen, Queen Vashti, because she refused to be treated like a sex object by the king and his friends at a party. Fearing other women in the kingdom would start to think they too had the freedom to do as they wished instead of obeying their husbands, the king and his good old boy network decided it was time for a new queen. They scoured the countryside for suitable virgins and finally settled on the good Jew Mordecai’s adopted, orphan daughter Haddassah, also known by her Persian name Esther. Esther was singled out as the most beautiful and acceptable queen candidate in the entire empire. Esther pleased the king like no other virgin and so she was crowned queen.
But just a few short years later, Mordecai got into trouble for refusing to bow down to one of the King’s right-hand advisors, a very evil man named Haman, who was probably a descendant of the Amalekites with whom the Israelites had fought viciously for years. This dastardly, evil man Haman, instead of getting even with just his enemy Mordecai, decided this might be a great opportunity to take care of the “Jewish problem” once and for all. Somehow, Haman managed to bribe the powerful king Xerxes into wiping out all the Jews in the empire. He got the king to sign off on his terrible extermination plan and a date for the awful genocide was actually put on the calendar in all the provinces and languages of the empire. Bizarre!
Mordecai tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes and went into public mourning for himself and his people. When Queen Esther sent one of the king’s eunuchs to cheer Mordecai up with some new clothes and, incredibly, to find out what was wrong, Mordecai begged her messenger to get Esther to directly intercede with the king on behalf of her people, the Jews. But Esther wasn’t very excited about the idea. After her years hiding out as a Jew in the king’s palace, Esther knew quite well that, by law, anyone who approached the king without an official royal invitation faced immediate execution. She was understandably nervous; not excited about risking death by approaching the king for any reason, even a very important reason.
And because of that, Queen Esther sent a selfish, insensitive response back to Mordecai essentially saying, “No way, Mordecai! Don’t you understand what could happen to me if I approached the king uninvited? Don’t you understand I could be immediately killed for doing what you’re asking me to do? Don’t you understand the evil dangers involved in your request? You’re asking me to jeopardize my Cinderella story here, Mordecai! And at the end of the day, let’s be honest here; don’t you understand how legally unimportant I am? For goodness sake, the king hasn’t even asked to see me in a month; I don’t even know if he still likes me?! He could be on to his next girl by now!” Pretty harsh, Queen Esther! Not a very compassionate or sacrificial response to the man who has taken you in and raised you as his own daughter...
But Mordecai, who understood the genuine threat of extermination faced by the Hebrew people; ignored Esther’s selfishness and sent back a terse, perhaps even slightly threatening message to Esther, which changed her mind. And it is this very short, very direct, turning point message we should reflect deeply on today. Beginning with verse 12 of chapter 4, we read...
When Esther's words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”
There are some critically important challenges in these verses. Frankly, for reasons too involved to fully explore right now, I’m not entirely certain of Esther’s motivations at almost any point in the story. Others may speculate about her virtue and greatness, but I believe it is her uncle Mordecai’s comments from which we have the most obvious stuff to glean. Mordecai cuts right to the heart of Esther’s situation and ours. I find five thoughtful challenges here…
The first of these soul-searching challenges is implied in the text and is sort of the harsh hypothesis for Mordecai’s entire response to Esther. Esther, don’t think you have arrived! Don’t think you’ve arrived at some lofty place where you no longer have to concern yourself with the affairs of others. Don’t think your earthly struggles are over. Don’t think of blissful retirement. Esther, you are a young woman living a mostly pagan life with a pagan king in a pagan country – don’t think the end of your story has already been written. Don’t think you are ever allowed to rest on your lovely laurels or put your pretty, new car in park! Don’t think your great beauty pageant success here in pagan Persia is the end point of your story! You have not arrived! As long as any of us have breath in our bodies, we have not yet finished the work God has given us to do on this earth. There is no arrival for any of us on this earth. There is no final rest on earth. There is no completeness on earth. Your work is never done until your Heavenly Father says it is done. Sweet Queen Esther, you have not arrived!
And so secondly, you are not exempt from the suffering around you. “Do not think that because you are in the king's house you alone of all the Jews will escape.” Esther, don’t think you’re exempt from suffering, exempt from this awful genocide, exempt from the agony of this moment, exempt from the violence of this world just because you now live in a prettier house than all of us. Some Bible commentators actually believe Mordecai is threatening to expose Esther as a Jew or at least reminding her that eventually she will be exposed as a Jew. Still others feel Mordecai is simply reminding Esther that even though she is now very privileged, there can be no doubt all the suffering will eventually come to her as well. Don’t think your year of beauty treatments is going to make a difference for you in the end! Don’t think you are exempt from the suffering around you, pretty girl! You are not special! You are not exempt.
Thirdly, because she has not arrived and because she is not exempt from suffering, Mordecai argues she cannot be silent. Silence?! Keep your mouth shut about all this evil happening?! Oh dear Esther, don’t think you have the option of being silent about all of the junk around you! If you do not cry out, the very rocks around you will do so! Esther, some things are so enormous even the possibility of silence doesn’t exist. Some things going on in this world around us are so big and terrible silence is not even a consideration. Whether or not speaking out will help make any lasting difference is not even a decision factor. Silence is impossible when people around you are suffering. You cannot be silent!
Then Mordecai makes a fourth statement, which reflects his own profound faith and trust in God. Esther, don’t think you’ve arrived, don’t think you’re exempt, don’t think silence is an option and, for goodness sake, don’t think God isn’t watching. Don’t think Almighty God is not involved in all this! Esther, stop and remember God is well aware of what is going on down here. Oh Esther, stop and realize that even if you chose to keep silent, our God still sees what is going on down here and He will take action to stop it. We are the children of God’s promise! While we have not kept our part of the covenant, while we may have been a disappointment to God, while we are in exile for our awful sin, God will still keep His promises. God has made an everlasting covenant with His people. Do you want to be a part of preserving covenant people or don’t you? My dear Esther, don’t you realize that “if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father's family will perish.” Don’t you realize God is going to have His way; don’t you want to be a part of it?
And, behind the scenes, what makes this fourth challenge of Mordecai’s even more fun and convicting is that, unbeknownst to either Mordecai or Esther, God has already woken King Xerxes in the night to get the rescue wheels in motion. Completely coincidentally, Mordecai has already done something to win the king’s favor; God is already humorously working that into the whole situation as part of the overall solution to the problem. Oh Esther, do you want to be a part of what God is already doing or don’t you? Esther, don’t think God is weak, disinterested and not involved here! Don’t think God won’t notice. Don’t think God is just going to sit there!
But perhaps the most important thing Mordecai shares in his brief message to Esther is the fifth and final statement. This is the big one. Esther, don’t think you’ve arrived, don’t think you’re exempt, don’t think silence is an option, don’t think God is weak and disinterested and, above all, don’t think, for one minute, that your actions don’t matter; you are not powerless! Don’t think all you are to God is some pretty face in a castle! Don’t think God can’t use you in this incredibly pivotal moment in history! Oh dear sweet Esther, “who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” Oh dear Esther, isn’t it just possible God has allowed you to be in the elevated position you’re in right now precisely because of moments like this? Isn’t it possible you are where you are because Almighty God wants little Esther to do something right where you are? Oh dear Esther, don’t think your actions don’t matter! Just because the people around you might view you as unimportant, frivolous, small, powerless or ornamental eye candy, don’t think your Heavenly Father sees you that way! You matter to Him! You might well be the very vehicle through which God plans to redirect the entire empire!
Do you understand that, Esther? Do you understand that, Elim? Do you understand that Kevin, Monica, Maria, Rick, Don, Brian, Jan, Becky, Chuck and all you fellows reading this sermon on paper in some prison cell somewhere or bleary-eyed insomniacs reading it on the internet? Do we understand how utterly powerful, important and influential we truly are in the Sovereign hands of Almighty God? Do we understand what God might be intending to do with us right where we are right now – wherever or whatever that position might look like in the eyes of the world? Do we have any idea what God intends to do in the empire with one little person like us? Who knows but that you have come to your position for such a time as this?
May God help us believe in His plans and purposes for us!
Amen.
