ESTHER: COURAGEOUS ACT OF RISKING HER LIFE
“Heavy, heavy hangs over thy head. What shall the owner do to redeem the forfeit?” Did you ever play a game of “forfeits” in which participants put personal belongings in a pile, a designated “judge” would sit with the “forfeits” out of sight, then a participant would hold an item from the pile over the judge’s head and say, “Heavy, heavy hangs over thy head. What shall the owner do to redeem the forfeit”?
Our Egyptian-American friend has told us about her real-life experience of “heavy, heavy” hanging over her head in the form of a death sentence unless she renounced her Christian faith and embraced government-mandated Islam.
Her choosing freedom - in Christ, in America - meant her forfeiture of Egyptian citizenship as well as her “loss” of family and friendships in her homeland.
The cost of Christian Discipleship is far greater for some than for others! How grateful we are for “the land of the free”! Let us keep it that way!
At the center of the story of Esther is the heaviness of heart that she and her kinfolks endured due to the dictates of a monarch whose advisor was none other than the devil himself disguised as Haman the Jew hater. When the angry king asked, “Who is this, and where is the one who would devise such a scheme”, Esther boldly answered, “The adversary and enemy is this evil Haman.” “Adversary” and “enemy” are two terms used in the Bible to describe Satan!
Heavy, heavy was the burden of a death sentence hanging over the heads of Mordecai and all Jews - even the queen herself inasmuch as it had become common knowledge in Persia that she was the Jewish maiden who once found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time before she found favor with Xerxes and became his new queen.
Now that Esther had been positioned by the LORD to be in the right place, at the right time, God’s timing for dealing with the devil had come. God’s timing for redeeming His people had come. God’s timing is perfect timing. Folks: Never lose sight of the biblical fact that the LORD God has dealt with, deals with, and always will deal with His enemy, adversary, the Evil One, Satan.
From “Get thee out of My Heaven” way back when, to “Get thee behind me” in the wilderness of temptation, to “Be thou cast into the lake of fire and brimstone” in the Book of Revelation, God’s wrath never lets Satan go undealt with, unpunished.
So it was that “they hanged Haman on the gallows Haman had prepared for Mordecai” – Esther 7:1-10 . . .
Satan’s strategy for disrupting God’s plan never has succeeded, never will. Yet Evil never takes a holiday from “prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (I Peter 5:8).
The someone Satan looks for is anyone with any kind of influence who may be vulnerable, gullible, or unable to withstand temptations that appeal to the ego – fame and fortune, prestige and power, recognition and reward.
As Shakespeare once opined in his pessimistic and fatalistic view of why we humans were put on this earth, “All the world’s a stage upon which ego struts its stuff and then is gone.” The End.
On the other hand, there is the optimistic view of John Bunyan, in his famous writing The Pilgrim’s Progress. He dramatized the pilgrimage that a true Christian must undertake to get safely “from this world to that which is to come.”
Summary: Life is like a roller coaster ride with “ups and downs”, but “the downs” do not spell The End.
Rather, Endurance that rises above temptation and reaffirms faith in God will win the battle of good versus evil. Paraphrase I Peter 13:13 . . . “All the world of ego will hate you because of me (Christ the Lord), but if you believers stand firm in your faith until the end of your pilgrimage on this earth, you will be saved.”
Nowhere in Scripture is this Drama played out more pungently than it is in the story of Esther. Think of a Drama Triangle: persecutor . . . victim . . . rescuer.
Satan had “devoured” Haman and turned him into persecutor of Mordecai who had found himself a victim of injustice. Esther, having come to the kingdom for “such a time as this”, became God’s rescuer as she stood up and spoke on behalf of Mordecai and all Jews whose destruction had been scheduled by the evil plot of an evil heart. Who would win . . . lose?
The foreboding of Satan’s destruction and the foretelling of God’s salvation comes through loud and clear in this presentation of a Drama Triangle that is still being played out on the world’s stage of which we are a part.
In this Drama Triangle, I see evidence of “The End” that will be Satan’s when God’s wrath is finally unleashed . . . I see providence at work foreshadowing the saving work of God’s rescuer. “When the time had fully come, God sent His Son.”
Whereas God’s chosen people the Jews were rescued by Queen Esther’s courageous act of risking her life, God so loved all people (Jews and Gentiles alike) that He sent His Son to rescue repentant sinners from Satan’s snare, to redeem our souls, to remake us whole. Thanks be to God who defeated Satan and gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord!
In this story of Esther, there is Just Cause for celebrating Satan’s defeat that resulted in the Jews’ deliverance from damnation and destruction.
In the redemptive story of the our Lord’s Crucifixion and Resurrection, there is Just Cause for celebrating Satan’s defeat that resulted in the Christian’s deliverance from damnation and destruction.
In our Observance of Communion, therefore, we celebrate Satan’s defeat that resulted in our Lord’s Victory over sin and the grave:
On the night in which our Lord was betrayed by one of His own disciples who had allowed himself (like Haman had allowed himself) to be “devoured” by Satan, and, in the case of Judas, allowed himself to be used by the Evil One to betray Jesus into the hands of evildoers . . .
The Lord Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way, he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
Then the Apostle Paul gave us the main reason for participating in an observance of remembrance:
“You proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes!”
Why is it important to proclaim the Lord’s death?
“Death is swallowed up in victory” . . . over sin . . . the grave . . . Satan – the author of sin and the grave!
We proclaim the Lord’s death by partaking of the bread which represents his broken body and by drinking of the cup which represents his blood.
Give thanks . . .
Serve the elements, accompanied by instrumental music . . .
Say: “Thanks be to God who gives us the Victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”
Sing the Hymn: “Blest Be the Tie” . . . Amen.
