THE HAND OF GOD
Scripture: Esther 9”18-23
Preached: January 18, 2026
Love’s Chapel
Wow! Ever thought that we’d see open antisemitism like we’ve been seeing lately? It seems to have died down a little … at least the media isn’t talking about it as much … they seemed to have moved on to other more “urgent” stories and events. Is this open antisemitism something new? Or is it just more out in the open now?
I don’t know who or what exactly is the driving force behind it but we do have some political leaders … some pretty high up … who may not openly declare that they are anti-Semitic but who do support groups and people who openly call for the elimination of the Jewish people and the Nation of Israel.
So where is God’s hand in all of this? I’m sure that the Jews living in exile under Persian domination wondered that too … so an unknown, unnamed author wrote the Book of Esther to explore and wrestle with this question. While it has been frequently pointed out for centuries and millennia that God is not mentioned anywhere in the Book of Esther, I feel God’s hand is all over it … and I also find the fact that God’s name is never mentioned … whether accidentally or on purpose … is the beauty of the author’s message. Just like with what’s happening with the Jews and Israeli today, we many not “see” Him … we may not “hear” Him … but that doesn’t mean that He is not very clearly at work.
On the one hand, the Book of Esther is an exciting, fast-paced story that has captured the imagination of the Jews for centuries. It contains all the elements of a popular romance novel:
- A beautiful, young heroine … Esther
- A wicked, scheming villain … Haman
- A Wise, older father figure … Mordecai
- And a laughable and inept ruler … Ahasuerus.
In the story, God triumphs … evil is destroyed … and everyone lives happily ever-after ... except for Haman.
It is no surprise, then, that the Book of Esther was so popular that … despite certain objections … including its failure to mention God even once … it made its way into the Jewish Canon … what we call the “Old Testament” … by popular acclaim. Beneath the light-hearted surface, however, the Book of Esther deals with some very dark issues … such as racial hatred … in this case, antisemitism … the threat of genocide … the evil over-weening pride and vanity of very powerful people in very powerful and influential positions.
The Book of Esther is what I would call an “historical fiction.” On one level, it is a work of fiction. As far as we know, none of the characters ever existed … but the characters in the story are set in a very real place during a very real time in Jewish history. And the person who wrote the Book of Esther paints a very accurate picture of the way that intrigue and the way that power worked in the Persian courts of his day. The early readers of the Book of Esther knew that the story and the characters weren’t real but they could certainly relate to the world in which the characters lived and moved and survived.
The Book of Esther is set in the Jewish diaspora … or Jewish exile … in Persia during the reign of King Ahasuerus … who was pattered after a real king … Emperor Xerxes. The real-life king, however, was nothing like Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther. Xerxes did rule over a vast empire that extended from India to the border of Ethiopia. As it was such a large empire, it contain ed a wide variety of people and ethnic groups. Non-Persians could attain high office in the Persian government.
In real life, Xerxes was married to Amestris … to whom he was married throughout his reign. He didn’t ban his wife from the royal court as Ahasuerus did. There is no record of a Haman- or Mordecai-type … or any non-Persian … serving as Xerxes’ second-in-Command. There is no record of a great massacre in which the Jews killed thousands at any point in Xerxes reign.
As I said, the author of the Book of Esther paints a picture of the world that Jews in the Persian exile could relate to and he used romance, intrigue, drama, and humor as a way to give them hope. The Book of Esther consistently lampoons their gentile overlords. Ahasuerus, for example, is a less-than-inspiring ruler who is an easily manipulated buffoon. Haman is an egomaniac whose vanity leads to his humiliation and downfall. The author uses hyperbole to high-light the excesses of the leaders of that time. Ahasuerus, for example, holds a banquet that last 180 days … that’s 6 months ... half a year. That would never happen and was impossible in the real world. In fact, every time you turn around in the Book of Esther, someone is holding a banquet … 10 in all … with the last two forming the basis of Purim … which is primarily a two-day banquet. But, as I said, the surface story … the romance, the intrigue, the drama, and the humor … masks, in a pleasant way, the author’s very serious intent … to teach diaspora Jews that it is possible to lead successful lives in the sometimes inexplicable gentile world in which they found themselves. In other words, he uses romance and drama, intrigue and humor to give them hope! Something that the Jews … and us, frankly … can use today, amen?
Like the Jews … well, even us … we live in a world that … like the Persian royal court … is never static. Like the world of the Persian royal court, our circumstances are constantly changing due to the times and often due to the whims and ambitions of those who wield the levers of great power. The Book of Esther was meant to be a hopeful message to the Jews living in the Diaspora … to remind them that the status quo is never really that … the status quo … or that the status quo will last forever … the people in power aren’t really the ones in control … that God is in the background and that things can always change for the better … no matter how bad they may seem right now … and the Book of Esther inspires us to hold on to that same hope today.
So, how is it possible for me to see the power and beauty of God in the Book of Esther if the author never mentions him? Funny you should ask. I’m going to chop up the story and I’m not going to delve into it in any great detail. I would encourage you to read it on your own if you haven’t … but I do want ot use the story to make a major point … one that the author may not have intended.
So, let’s start with the banquet … the one that lasted 180 days. “For a full 180 days [Ahasuerus] displayed the vast wealth of his kingdom and the glory of his majesty” (Esther 1:4). Remember what I said earlier about the author lampooning and high-lighting the ego and vanity of people in high places with great power. Not ironically, Ahasuerus’ name means “Mighty One” in Persian. Now … the first banquet … the one that lasted 180 days … was for all his nobles and officials … from all 127 provinces of his kingdom. When that party was over, he held a second banquet. This second banquet was a private party … for the people who worked for him in the palace … great and small. “Drinking was by flagons without restraint; for the king had given orders to all the officials of his palace to do each one desires” (Esther 1:8).
The rule in those days was that you could only drink as much as the king. If he took a drink, you could take a drink. But at this party, the king had decided to break that rule and make a new one … a pattern that we see throughout the Book of Esther … where he is influenced by Haman to make a law ordering all the Jews to be killed … and then telling Esther and Mordecai to write a new law rescinding Haman’s law and giving the Jews permission to defend themselves.
Ahasuerus’ queen, Vashti, was having a “women’s only” party in another part of the palace. Well, with that much drinking going on, thing were getting pretty wild. Ahasuerus is starting to feel his cups when he decides to summon his beautiful wife, Vashti, to show her off. He’s already shown off his wealth and generosity, what else is left but to show off his beautiful wife. BUT … she refuses to come and that is both humiliates and enrages Ahasuerus … so he calls together some of this advisors and they come up with a new law: “If it pleases the king, let him issue a royal order that may not be altered stating that Vashti is never again to come before King Ahasuerus. And let the king give her royal position to another better than she” (Esther 1:19).
Ironically, Vashti’s name means “Best” in Persian.
Now … that opened the door for Esther to become that “someone better” to replace Vashti. If Vashti had gone to the banquet as the king requested, Esther never would have become queen. Or if Ahasuerus had sobered up and not listened to his “advisors,” he might have calmed down and forgot the whole thing and Vashti would have remained the queen and not Esther. And if Esther had never become queen then she never would have been there to stop Haman’s plan to kill Mordecai and all the Jews in King Ahasuerus’ kingdom. Seeing the hand of God at work yet?
Again, King Ahasuerus listens to his advisors who encourage him to hold a beauty contest to pick his next queen: “Let beautiful young virgins be sought out for the king. And let the king appoint commissioners in all the provinces of his kingdom to gather all the beautiful young virgins to the harem in the citadel of Susa under the custody of Hegai, the king’s eunuch, who is in charge of the women; let their cosmetic treatments be given them. And let the girl who pleases the king be queen instead of Vashti” (Esther 2:2-4). And, of course, this advice pleased the king.
The author says that Esther was “fair and beautiful” (Esther 2:7) … but so were all the hundreds of other “young virgins” who were competing for the king’s favor in the hopes of becoming queen. So what made her stand out and inspire Hegai to help her win the contest? Was it chance? A good guess? What if another woman had caught Hegai’s eye? What if another woman won the king’s heart/ Then, again, Esther wouldn’t have have been there to save the Jews. Hmmm… beginning to see a pattern here?
Was it fate or co-incidence or the hand of God that Mordecai happened to overhear two of the king’s noblemen plotting to kill the king? What it just an over-sight? Or the hand of God that led King Ahasuerus to commit a grave breach of royal etiquette when he failed to thank Mordecai for exposing the plot against his life by bestowing a title and gifts on him. Was it fate or co-incidence or the hand of God that gave Ahasuerus insomnia one night? Was it the hand of God or King Ahasuerus’ vanity that inspired King Ahasuerus to take advantage of his insomnia by reading about his exploits as king? Was it fate or the hand of God that led Ahasuerus to discover that he hadn’t properly thanked Mordecai for exposing the plot against his life? What it fate or co-incidence that Mordecai’s dreaded enemy … Haman … happened to be waiting in the hall outside of the king’s bed chamber the next morning waiting to see the king and talk him into issuing a decree to kill Mordecai and all the Jews? Was it serendipity or chance that Haman ended up leading Mordecai through the streets of Susa on one of the king’s horses, wearing one of the king’s royal robes, proclaiming the king’s favor and gratitude toward Mordecai instead of leading Mordecai to the gallows?
Was it fate or co-incidence or the hand of God that gave Mordecai knowledge of Haman’s plot to kill him and all the Jews? And was it luck or the hand of God that gave Esther the opportunity to expose Haman and his evil plot to the king to kill all the Jews … including his beloved Esther … thus leading Haman to be hung on the very gallows that he had built for Mordecai?
Again … I am going over the Book of Esther with very broad, general strokes … so I encourage you to read the whole book on your own to catch all the nuance and subtle twists of plot … and trust me, there are many and they are cleverly and artfully done.
In every case, the author of the Book of Esther challenges us to wonder and ask: Is this fate? Is this luck? Chance? Coincidence? Or the hand of God? And to me, the beauty and the genius of the Book of Esther is that he never tells us! He expects us to draw our own conclusion. Is this just an exciting story? Or is there something more behind it? And if there is something more behind it, what is that something … or, in this case, Someone?
I think the story of Esther brings us to a very important and difficult place. I have to be very careful not to defend or vindicate God … to blame all the bad circumstances or the action of bad actors on circumstances or even “free will” and attribute only the good … or what I perceive as “good” … on God. For example, praising God for placing Esther in just the right place at just right time to expose Haman. The question is whether God is behind only parts of it? Or is He behind all of it … the good and the bad?
The point … I think … is that God is behind all of it. As one real-life king pointed out, how weighty are the thoughts of God … how vast the sum of them. If we were to try to count them, they are more than the sand (referring to David’s thoughts in Psalm 139). But my ego wants to know what God’s thoughts are or why He does or doesn’t do what He does or doesn’t do … to decide what is or isn’t the work of God based on my own subjective opinion, no matter how theologically sound I may think I’m being. Most of the time, however, God chooses to remain anonymous … like He does in the story of Esther. And yet … like the author of the Book of Esther … we know that God is there … even if He is never mentioned by name. Like the Jews in the exile, we know that the hand of God is at work even though we can’t see it … that He doesn’t always share His thoughts and plans and purposes with us … that God is not going to step out of Heaven and take credit for His work … that God doesn’t do what He does to win our approval or applause. Like the Jews during the Babylonian and Persian exile, we have faith … faith even if we can’t see His hand at work. Faith … as the Apostle Paul says … that God can and will make all things right in the end like He did at the end of the Book of Esther. Faith that we, like Esther and Mordecai, have a part to plan in God’s plan … even if we don’t know what God’s plan is … even if we never know or even understand what our part is in God’s plans.
As we saw … and are still seeing … during Hurricane Helene and its aftermath … there were people in the right place at the right time for us … and that we … knowingly or unknowingly … have been in the right place at the right time for other people … and some who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And even in those situations … where people lost loved ones or lost everything … God was and still is in the background … at work in ways that we will never see … in ways that we will never understand … using people … people like you and me … to help people like He used Mordecai and Esther … and even King Ahasuerus … to help His people.
The Book of Esther is followed by the Book of Job, who asks God a hundred, a zillion questions: “Why this?” “Why that?” “Why not this?” “Why not that?” and the answer for Job is the same answer for Esther and the same answer for us today. We don’t have all the answers … we don’t need all the answers … but we know the One who does, amen?
The author’s skill … the author’s intention … in the Book of Esther, well … I don’t really know what his intention was … but the feeling that I get when I read the story of Esther is that God is there, even if His name isn’t mentioned. I just feel His Presence … and that feeling of His Presence was meant to give a people living in exile hope … hope that God had not abandoned them … hope that God was watching over them … hope that the hand of God was till at work in their lives and in the future of Israel even if they couldn’t see it.
Do we have the same hope today? Hope that God hasn’t abandoned us no matter what’s going on in our lives right now? Hope that God is still at work in our lives and in our future even if we can’t see it?
Let us pray …
