What is a good story without good characters? The AMC series Breaking Bad has a cast of characters that the writers develop incredibly well. We’ve met the main character Walter White—chemistry teacher turned drug king-pin. There is Walt’s wife, Skylar, who never really quite knows whether to trust Walt or not. There is Walt’s special needs son, Walter Jr., and Walt’s Drug Enforcement Agency brother-in-law, Hank. And, we must not forget Walt’s partner-in-crime, Jesse Pinkston, his former student who is Walt’s first connection to the drug underworld. Throughout the five seasons of the series, the writer’s do a masterful job telling Walt’s story. Yes, when it comes to story, the character’s matter.
So it is with Esther’s story in the Old Testament. The story, and I hesitate to call it a story, though it could rival the best Hollywood has to offer, is filled with a cast of interesting characters, and the author, who remains unidentified, does a masterful job developing those characters. There is a villain, a hero, a damsel in distress and a surprising climax, not to mention everyone (well, almost everyone) lives happily ever after. A real, made-for-Hollywood story—except it’s true.
The book of Esther was almost not included in the canon of Scripture because nowhere is God mentioned in the book, and there are no overtly religious activities anywhere in the story. Then why include it? Esther tells the story of the Jewish nation living in the Babylonian exile after 586 B. C. As a matter of fact, the events of the book of Esther take place approximately 100 years into that exile period. So as the story unfolds, the Jewish people in Babylon are probably more Babylonian than they are Hebrew, but that doesn’t keep the story from getting interesting. In today’s passage (Esther 4: 10 – 14), we encounter the heroine, Esther in dialogue with her cousin Mordecai. We hear about the King and we hear about something about deliverance for the Jews. We don’t know it yet, but this really is a defining moment, not only for Esther, but for the Jewish people. How did she get here?
The story takes place in Persia – also called Babylon. One of the great kings of ancient history ruled there, an empire builder named Xerxes. His queen was a beautiful woman named Vashti. One day, the King ordered his wife to appear before him at a party so he could show everyone just how beautiful she was. Not wanting to be paraded around before a bunch of drunken men clad only in her royal tiara, Vashti refused. When she refused, the king was furious. To make matters worse, the officials of the King suggested that if word of her refusal to obey got around, no one else’s wife would think she had to listen to her husband. Imagine, a woman who dared not listen to what her husband said! The King had her banished from the Kingdom.
King Xerexes wasn’t happy for long without a queen, so he decides to have his kingdom searched for beautiful young women to come and make their bid for the throne. The girls would be groomed and pampered for several months, then each one, in turn, would spend some time with the king (if you know what I mean?). He would then decide which one would become his new queen. Picture The Bachelor on steroids.
The King’s scouts happened upon Esther. Esther was beautiful, gracious and kind—just what the king was looking for. In no time at all, Esther was married to the king. Esther was a Jew. The Jews had been driven out of Israel about 100 years before and exiled in Persia. Although they did their best to make a living in this strange land, they prayed that someday they would be able to return to their home. Esther’s cousin Mordechai, who had raised Esther after she’d been orphaned, was the leader of the Jews and a very shrewd fellow. Mordechai encouraged Esther to hide her faith from the King and his advisors, which she did.
A fellow by the name of Haman had, by this time, become a powerful man in the kingdom - Prime Minister, in fact. He decided that given his rise in power, it would be appropriate for everyone to bow down to him. But Mordecai refused to bow down to him. Haman was angry, and asked the King to authorize a royal decree to annihilate the Jews. Haman cast lots to determine the day this was to happen. And so it was decreed that in Adar of the coming year, on the 13th day of the month, all the Jews were to be killed, in every province and every nation of the land. Yes, the Jews have been facing bad circumstances since the beginning of their history. There would be no place to run, and no place to hide. This is where we pick up the story in today’s scripture reading.
Mordecai, and all the Jews heard of Haman’s intentions as the decree was read across the land. He, and all the Jews, mourned in sackcloth and ashes. Haman sends Esther a message to tell her what Haman is plotting, and challenges her to go to the King on the Jews behalf.
Esther is fearful. She hadn’t been allowed to see the King for a month. In fact, no one could see him without being invited. But she fasted and prayed for three days, mustered up her courage and went to see the king. Although he was initially angry at her, King Xerxes spared her life and offered “half my kingdom for your wishes,” All she asked was that the King and Haman join her for dinner that night. As they were drinking wine, the king again asked Esther, “Now what is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.” Esther replied, “My petition and my request is this: If the king regards me with favor and if it pleases the king to grant my petition and fulfill my request, let the king and Haman come tomorrow to the banquet I will prepare for them. Then I will answer the king’s question.” Of course, both the King and Haman agreed to attend a second banquet with the lovely young Queen.
Haman was very pleased that he’d been asked to dine with the King and Queen two nights in a row and was filled with pride. Yet, when he saw Mordecai at the king’s gate, and Mordecai still refused to bow to him, Haman was filled with anger. He decided that night to build a gallows to hang Mordechai from and planned to speak to the king about it the very next morning. That way, he’d have the whole matter dealt with during the day and be able to enjoy the next evening’s banquet in peace.
That same night the king couldn’t sleep; so he ordered the history books of his reign to be brought in and read to him. Surely, that would put him to sleep! The book was opened to the day Mordecai (yes, the same Mordecai) exposed a plot to assassinate the King. The King was reminded of this tale and asked what reward Mordecai had received. The king’s attendants told him that nothing had been done for Mordecai.
The next morning, just as Haman was arriving to ask that Mordecai be hanged the king asked him, “What should be done for the man the king wants to honor?” Haman, filled with pride, mistakenly thought the king was referring to him. So he answered the king, “Dress him in royalty, put him on one of the King’s horses, and parade him through the streets of the city shouting, ‘This is what is done for the man the king wants to honor’!”
Imagine Haman’s chagrin when the King says, “I love it! Do that for Mordecai. You’ll find him right outside my gate.” Can you just see Haman? In an ironic and humorous twist, Haman ends up being the one who leads Mordecai through the streets of the city shouting, “This is what is done for the man the king honors!” Haman obeyed the king, of course, but not happily! He was very upset that Mordecai, his enemy, was being honored by the king. Immediately after leading Mordecai around the city, Haman had to go to the banquet with the King and Queen.
At this second banquet, Esther finally shares the secret of her faith, and proclaimed herself a Jew. She begged the king to spare her people. Harbona, one of the king’s attendants told the king of the gallows that Haman had built to have Mordecai hanged. The king was furious with Haman and ordered that he be hanged on those gallows. Haman’s pride and cruelty had led to his own destruction and Esther, barely 20 years old, had saved her people.
The defining moment of the story, of Esther’s life, and for the entire Jewish nation is found in Esther 4:12-14. Defining moments often come out of crisis. The Jewish nation was in crisis, and Esther had a decision to make. Hear the words of Mordecai again: “Don’t think for a moment that because you’re in the palace you will escape when all other Jews are killed. If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?”
There are a number of great lessons we can learn from Esther’s story, but I only want to note two this morning as we discover ways to break bad circumstances. First, always trust God—even when we can’t see Him, and second, always do the right thing.
First, always trust God—even when we can’t see him. God is never mentioned in Esther’s story, and after living for 100 years in a pagan culture, there must have been the sense that God was absent.
We’re all familiar with “Murphy’s Law”—when something can go wrong it will go wrong. We see it running throughout Esther’s story, and we often see it running through our own lives, especially when we encounter crises in our lives. Each of us could add our own revisions of Murphy’s Law:
• Just when things can’t seem to get any worse, they do.
• Things are seldom what they seem.
• When everything seems great, it isn’t.
We can add those revisions because there are only three types of people in the world: Those who are about to enter a crisis, those who are in a crisis, or those just coming out of a crisis. In those times, God can seem awfully distant, or not present at all, but if I may offer a counter to Murphy’s Law? If Esther’s story teaches me nothing else, it teaches me this: When God seems absent, He’s not.
God’s guiding hand can be seen providentially throughout Esther’s story. Mordeai’s challenge to Esther that she might be queen “for such a time as this” is remarkable. It’s all about God’s timing, even though God is never mentioned. Imagine a Jew being queen at the time the edict is issued to exterminate the Jews. Imagine Mordecai being in the right place to overhear an assassination plot against the King. Imagine the King having insomnia the very night before Haman was going to hang Mordecai. There are no coincidences in the Kingdom of God. There are only “God-incidences.” Each of the moments in the story of Esther were seemingly insignificant moments, but their seeming insignificance defies the importance of each one.
Such is it in our lives, too. Someone said, “Life is what happens to us while we’re making other plans.” When we look at current events in the world—and at events in our own lives—we find their meaning so ambiguous. A given event might be good or it might be bad, or maybe it’s a mixed blessing. We can’t really judge its significance until years later. What’s even more confusing is that sometimes bad decisions can lead to good results, and what begins as good intentions can end in heartbreak. We are forced to admit that we are not really in control of our lives much at all. As people of faith, we believe that God is in control, and we trust God, even when it appears He’s absent.
As we read Esther’s story, Esther has no prophetic vision to guide her. She had no promise of scripture that calls to her remembrance the covenant of God. Remember, the Jews have been 100 years in a pagan culture. She’s just left to make a decision, and she had no way of knowing whether there would be a happy ending. That’s us, my friends! That’s why we must choose to do the right thing, and the right thing always has others in mind.
Esther’s choice teaches us the most important lesson of how to make right decisions, not just in bad circumstances, but through every day of our life. When in doubt, always err on the side of meeting the needs of other people. That is what Esther did. She determined it might cost her own life to do so, but she was going to attempt to save the lives of others. At the end of the day, we either make decisions that are about us, or we make decisions that are about others. Deciding for others is the Christian ethic in a nutshell.
Here’s another counter to Murphy’s Law. What we think is going to save us often destroys us. What we think will rob us ends up saving our lives. In fact, Jesus said the same thing: For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it (Matthew 16:25).
So, here’s the hope for us: When we trust God and pursue righteousness, God will use us through the circumstances of our lives to do something magnificent for the Kingdom of God. Ultimately, does it matter HOW that happens? It may happen through some serendipitous experience where everyone experiences a happy ending. But, that’s more Hollywood than real life. It’s often in a time of seeming hopelessness that the greatest demonstration of the power of God is revealed, and our lives and the lives of others are transformed because we trusted God and chose to do the right thing. That’s what Christ did on the cross. In that moment when things seemed most hopeless, God did the most amazing work of history. There’s our hope, too!
