Word of Salvation – August 2024

 

Time And Opportunity

 

Sermon by Harry Burggraaf B.D. on Esther 4:14

Scripture Reading: Esther 4; 1Peter 2:9-12

Singing:        Now with joyful exultation (BoW.95)
                        Lord, our Lord Your glorious name (BoW.8a vs.1,4,5)
                        You are the light of the world (BoW.431)

 

“And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” Esther 4:14

 

The book of Esther is a remarkable story by any standards.

I am surprised that Hollywood hasn’t used it as a script for one of its blockbuster movies.  It’s full of all the stuff that movies are made of — love and lust, courage and cowardice, cruelty and compassion, intrigue and integrity, suspicion and trust, and the heroes end up riding happily into the sunset.

Can you imagine the themes:
 – From Jewish Orphan to Beauty Queen;
 – From Sex Symbol to Intercessor;
 – The Revenge of the Righteous.

They wouldn’t even have to pay the outrageous copyright fees they normally fork out for these films as the story is in the public domain.  Perhaps it’s too hot; too politically incorrect; too confronting; too life-changing; too challenging!?

This morning I want to take us to the heart of this book with those well-known words of Mordecai: (Esther 4:13,14)

“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 house will perish.  And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”

What’s a nice Jewish girl doing in a harem?

As I was reading through the whole of the book again (it’s great to do it in one sitting) it struck me once again why critics and even parts of the church have had such difficulties with the book of Esther, why it is in the Bible at all?

Think about it – what is a nice Jewish girl like Esther doing in the harem of a middle eastern tyrant?  This is not a Prince Charles and Dianna story; rich king falls in love with poor maiden.

This is ‘A Thousand and One Arabian Nights’ territory.  Women were sex objects; they could be acquired and discarded at a whim.

What was a pious Jewish girl doing in a beauty contest for a playboy king?

* And what were Mordecai and Esther and the other Jews doing in the royal capital of the Persian Empire in any case?  Surely they should have been back home in Canaan, the land of their heritage.  They had been exiled to Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar.  But the enlightened successor Cyrus and Darius had allowed captive ethnics like the Jews to go home.  What were Mordecai and Esther doing, remaining in this pagan country?

* And why the name change.  Esther was really ‘Hadassah’.  A nice Jewish name meaning ‘myrtle’…!  Why change it to the Persian, Esther, ‘star’ – was she into the local astrology?  And ‘Mordecai’, from the word ‘Marduk’ – the chief of the Babylonian gods.  Why would a successful Jewish business man take on the name of an idolatrous god?  Had they lost their sense of calling?  Had they forgotten they were the special people of God?  I can understand that if you’ve got a name like ‘Burggraaf‘ you might change it to be more Australian.  But would you change it to ‘Casino’ or ‘Tattslotto’ or ‘Greed’ or “Pornography’ – or whatever the current idolatry is?

* And then the whole book?  The name of God is not mentioned once.  There is not one prayer, no worship, no devotion.  The feast of Purim at the end of the book is more like a secular carnival.

I can understand why a person like Martin Luther, at the time of the Reformation, had real difficulties with accepting this book into the Canon of Scripture.  Luther felt that Esther was too Jewish; showed too much Jewish fanatical pride.  He felt it didn’t reveal Christ enough.  “The book Esther gives me no comfort and therefore I do not busy myself with it.”

But congregation, that is the very strength and beauty of the book.  It is not about heroes of the faith, or deeply religious people, or saints, or great prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah who declare ‘this is the word of the Lord’.  It is not about strong, righteous, holy people.

It’s about ordinary little faith strugglers like you and I.  It’s about people who compromise and hide their faith and are far too much like the culture around them.  People who struggle to be God’s followers and even seem, at times, to be ashamed of being God’s person.

And in spite of all that they fit into God’s story and he touches their lives with his grace and salvation.

For such a time as this!

‘Who knows that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?’

What time?  What position?

Most of us know the story well.

Under Nebuchadnezzar many Jews, often the leaders and the elite, had been taken into exile and settled in various parts of the Babylonian Empire.  When the Persians defeated Babylon under Cyrus many of the Jews returned home as we have it recorded in books like Ezra and Nehemiah and some of the minor prophets.  But many stayed and formed Jewish communities or blended into the general population.

Some rose to prominence, like Daniel and his friends, and like Mordecai in Esther.  He seemed to have access to the palace and had friends in high places.

We have archaeological details of communities in Susa, the capital of the Persian Empire.  There are archives and records of a firm called ‘Murashu and Sons’ – a great firm of bankers and brokers (Like the Nat bank or Westpac of the Middle East).  They contracted to collect the taxes for the Persian government.  Perhaps Mordecai was high up in such a company.  Now of course there was nothing wrong with that.  God’s people are meant to contribute to the societies in which they live.

Jeremiah had said: (29:4-7) Build houses… seek the peace of the city.

But they are meant to be leaven; influencers for good; distinctive; salt and light.  How did Esther end up in a beauty contest; in the whole harem system of a pagan king?

And then the procedure she had to undergo.  Can you imagine a whole year of Jenny Craig, Avon, Nutrimetrics, aroma therapy, facials, waxing (just read chapter 2), all just to be attractive for some autocrat who discarded his earlier wife because she refused to parade in front of his drunken friends.

Was she forced, or did Mordecai see it as a way of promoting his influence and business?  Why did he tell her to hide her identity?

We know how Haman plots to destroy the Jewish communities by wheedling himself into the good graces of the king.  How Mordecai foils the plot with the help of Esther and how in terrible, bloodthirsty retaliation Haman is hanged on the gallows meant for Mordecai and over 75,000 would-be Jewish assassins are slaughtered.

Not such a nice story really?  Why is it in the Bible?  Why part of God’s inspired Word?

Mainly because it is not just the story of some interesting characters – a stunningly beautiful Esther, a resourceful Mordecai, a scheming Haman.  But it is part of a larger story, a larger drama – God’s story.

There’s a new series starting on Channel 7 tonight – ‘Always Greener’ with John Howard from SeaChange and Anne Tenney.  It promises to be another of those quintessentially Aussie dramas.

It’s about a city family and country family changing places.  John Howard is a social worker and Tenney is an insurance claim inspector.  No doubt each episode will explore some aspect of the on-going drama of their changed lives as they swap places.

The first episode will take time to introduce the characters and lay the foundations for the plot.  Then some sort of tensions or problems will be introduced.  There will be conflict and resolution.  Each episode is part of the overall story.

I want to suggest that God’s story is like that.  Like a drama – in six acts or episodes – and we need to fit Bible stories like Ruth and Esther into God’s overall big-picture story.  Let me just take you through the six acts.

Act 1 – creation; introduces the characters and lays the foundation for the plot; reveals the authors intentions; the purpose of life, the characters’ tasks, the setting;

Act 2 – The Fall; introduces the plot tension; conflict, distress;

Act 3 – Israel: explores the tensions, failings, successes of the people of God in the old covenant; Esther belongs here;

Act 4 – the Jesus event; the pivotal act where the plot conflict and problem begins to be unravelled at its deepest roots; the one episode of the series that no one can afford to miss; if you don’t see that nothing else makes sense;

Act 5 – the church; the tensions failings, successes of the people of God in the new covenant; this is where we belong; can you see yourself there?

Act 6 – the eschaton; the return of the main character who brings the plot to a climax and resolves all the tension; the new heaven and earth.

So the book of Ruth can only be understood as you see it in the context of the broader drama of God’s salvation history.

And here it is the same with the book of Esther.  God’s name may not be mentioned once.  But it is his story all along.  And what we need to see is how Esther, Haman, Mordecai and Xerxes fit into God’s story.

‘And who knows but that you have come to royal power for such a time as this.’

What time?

For the time that God intends this to be!  God’s people are under threat, the Old Testament church is about to be annihilated, the community through whom the Saviour will come is to be destroyed in an act of genocide as terrible as The Holocaust.

And how is God about to save the situation?  Through a beauty queen, a sex symbol; through a scheming Jewish business man and possible con artist; through people as sinful, vulnerable, weak, confused as you and I.  People with a weak faith.  People who may have been so shaped and compromised by the culture in which they lived that they had only a faint notion of what God could do.

Look at Esther’s reply to Mordecai.  ‘Fast for me’ (vs.16) why not fast and pray.  Later apocrypha add that.

‘And if I perish, I perish!’ (vs16)  What sort of faith is that?

And all the time God has it under his control.

I am amazed by the little details of the story that tell us this is God’s show all the time.

* The king hasn’t shown an interest in Esther for a month.  Lots of other beautiful women in his harem.  Yet he extends the sceptre.

* He agrees to a romantic candlelight dinner not just once but twice.

* The night before Esther is about to ask the king for clemency for the Jews the king can’t sleep.  He asks his personal attendant to read him a bedside story (Ch.5), the chronicles of his reign – talk about liking yourself.  It happens to be the part about Mordecai saving the life of the king.  ‘Was he ever rewarded for this?’.  And Haman the executioner, becomes Haman the executed.

Circumstance?  Chance?  Coincidence?  Of course not!  This is God’s story.  All Esther and Mordecai needed to realise is that they ‘were God’s people for such a time as this’.  God’s time!

Mordecai’s connections and influence – God’s opportunity.

Esther become Queen – God’s solution.

God’s name is not mentioned once.  As Luther said, it’s hard to find Christ in Esther.  But he’s there all the time.  In the background, caring for his people, preserving his church, directing events to that climax of history, the cross, the resurrection, his return in glory.

It’s pictured for us in Revelation 12.  The war in heaven.  The Dragon, the Child.  The Followers!

Come to royalty for such a time as this.

Mordecai would never have realised it but in many ways his words are prophetic.  You may have come to royal position for such a time as this.  That rings bells for me.  In the passage we read from Peter we are told that we, who are playing in Act 5 of God’s drama have also come to a royal position.

What does Peter say?  Do you remember?

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood… that you may proclaim his praises.” (1Peter 2:9)

If we are a Christ follower, we are part of God’s drama.  And make no mistake about it, we have come to this royal position for such a time as this.

Dandenong, 2001; John Howard Prime Minister; Harry Burggraaf teacher; Alan McKenzie, plumber; Lottie Campbell, resident of Outlook Gardens; John Blik, retired and caravan dweller.

The time and place may be different from Susa 480BC, Xerxes, king; Mordecai, Jewish business man.  But God’s working is still the same.  His intention is still to gather his church; his passion is still to bring salvation, healing and peace into people’s lives; he still longs for people to become his adopted sons and daughters.

And we had better be prepared and open to God using our lives, our everyday, ordinary, hum drum lives, to bring these things about.

What is God, the director of life’s drama going to do with us ‘at such a time as this??  Well, it will be different for each one of us.  Because each of us have different talents and resources and each of us have different lives.  And God tends to work through the stuff that we are already doing.

* What does it mean for someone in the village or hostel, to be royalty at such a time as this?  Well, I don’t expect that you’ll be lining up for a king’s harem.  But – praying for others?  Letters and phone calls of encouragement?  Being a godly mentor to a younger person?

* Retired people.  More time on your hands.  What does your royal position mean for such a time as this?  I could think of dozens of ways to promote God’s kingdom, to be involved in his shalom, his peace project.

* Family people: Busy; demands of growing children.  Your royal position for such a time as this; what does it mean?

* Younger people; students; your whole life ahead of you.  You too are a royal priesthood – in a position to do wonderful things in the context of God’s story.

A few weeks ago we had ‘careers week’ at school and students had to choose a job from the ads in the paper and then apply for it and go for an interview.  We’d organised for tradespeople, businesspeople, professionals to interview them.

A great experience to help them think about future work.  But the sad thing was that the number one criteria they used to select a job was the salary it offered.  Well, they were only year 10s, hopefully a more mature view of vocation will be theirs by the time they are ready to enter the work force.

But a far more important question is as God’s person, as a child of the king, as royalty, what has God got in mind for me ‘at such a time as this’?

And what are God’s purposes for us, as a church community in this place, in 2001 ‘at such a time as this’?

The church is not just another organisation which we join if it meets our need and leave if it doesn’t.  We are not royalty for nothing.  It must have something to do with God’s great drama of calling people to himself and putting back together all the broken and dislocated pieces of the world.  For as Mordecai said to Esther.  God will do his thing.  Whether we are available or not.

It’s about the closest he gets to using the name of God.  He says ‘if you keep silent…  deliverance will arise from another place’.  The word is ‘maqom’ – used by the Jews as a substitute for God’s divine name which they felt they shouldn’t use.

If you aren’t available God will do it another way.

But there’s the thrill, the excitement, the joy, the satisfaction of you being the person God uses; you being the person for God’s moment.