Esther - Serving God in the Most Unlikely Ways

July 13, 2003, 8:00, 9:30, 11:00 AM

Rev. Ronald Burcham

Typed from audio transcript

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Would you believe that God is not mentioned once in the Book of Esther? In fact, there is not even an inference to God or His name in all the chapters of the Book of Esther. It has led some to believe through the ages that maybe Esther really doesn't have a place in Holy Scripture. After all, if it doesn't mention the name of God, if the Book is never referred to from the New Testament, does it really have a place in scripture? And yet, as you read through the Book of Esther, the real beauty of the book is the fact that it doesn't mention God's name, the very fact that it doesn't need to mention God's name. Because, although His name is not there, He is so evident in every word and every chapter and every section of the story of Esther. We can see God at work. We can see Him working through circumstances unknown to the people in the story, see Him getting things set so that His plan, so that His purposes could be accomplished. And then, at the right time, He poses a situation to Esther where she has to step up to the plate, step out in faith, seize the moment, if you will, step out in faith so that God's plan can come to fruition.

To me, the story of Esther is about real life. Although it was thousands of years ago and the setting is different from our life, it's easy for us to relate to it because it talks about everyday people. It talks about everyday occurrences, but we get a chance to look at it from a bird's eye point of view; and we can see how God put things in motion, how God made circumstances work so that life isn't just a bunch of unrelated events, random things that happen to us, but it's part of a larger plan, part of a larger plan that God says that we play a part in. And there comes a time, even for us, when God will put us in the right place in the right time and He's going to ask us to seize the moment, to step out in faith.

Now for us really to get a handle on that, we've got to know the whole story of Esther and I would guess that maybe it's been awhile since you've read the story of Esther or maybe you've never read the story. So I think we really need to put everything into context. But we need to do that in a short order, so buckle your seatbelts. We're going to go through Esther at kind of a fast pace here.

The story begins with King Xerxes. King Xerxes is having a great banquet, and he's having a good time. In fact, it lasts several days and scripture tells us that he's been rather liberal with the wine. So he and his buddies, his pals have gathered around, have had too much to drink. He gets it into his head that it would be a neat idea to bring out his wife, the queen, since she's so beautiful, and show her off to the guys. Seems like a reasonable thing to do, at least if you're a king back then. So he summons his wife to come out and parade around the men. Here's a surprise. She says no. She decides that's not a good idea, that she's not going to parade around in front of a bunch of drunken men. Well, that would be okay in this day and age but, back then, that was a no-no. You don't tell the king that you're not going to do that. In fact, the king gets together with all of his pals and, as guys would do the thinking, they thought to themselves, "You know, if we let her get away with this, then that's just going to ruin it for husbands all over the whole kingdom. They'll think that they can think on their own. We can't have that, now can we? So we're going to banish the queen." Essentially, he divorces the queen, sends her off into punishment, and now he's looking for a new queen.

In steps Mordecai, the other key figure in the story. Mordecai has adopted his cousin, Esther, because her parents have died. He looks at Esther and realizes that she's beautiful and a good candidate for the king, so he dresses her all up and gets her put into the harem. Sure enough, the next step we see, King Xerxes sees her. He's overcome by her beauty. He places the crown upon her head. She becomes the queen. Great. Everything is going well. Meanwhile, Mordecai is hanging out at the gates of the palace just seeing how things are going on. He overhears a plot to assassinate the king. He sends a message to Esther. "Esther, there are a couple of guys down here that want to kill your husband." She relates that to King Xerxes. Sure enough, he investigates it. The conspiracy is true. These two guys are put into prison. Mordecai has saved the day. What does he get for his efforts? Not really a whole lot, a pat on the back and a thank you. Keep that in mind. It comes into play later on.

The story continues on from there. There is the third character that enters in, and that is Haman. Now, for whatever reason, Haman has risen in stature in the kingdom and he becomes maybe the secondhand type of guy to King Xerxes. King Xerxes honors him in every way. In fact, he says that when Haman comes around, everyone is to bow down in respect of Haman. Well, that works okay until he comes out of the palace and here's Mordecai. I don't know why, but Mordecai decides that he's not going to do that for Haman. He doesn't like him. Maybe he didn't like the way he looked or his personality. Scripture doesn't tell us, but Mordecai does not bow down in front of Haman. As you might guess, this displeases Haman a great deal. So Haman decides that he's going to do something about that. He thinks about it, and he says, "You know, it's not good enough just to kill Mordecai. Why not wipe out an entire nation?" I suppose that's the way they thought back then. So let's wipe out all of the Jews. The next day he goes to the king. "King Xerxes, listen. There are these people that are bothering me. I'd like to sort of take care of them. I'll toss in 10,000 into the treasury." King says, "Keep your money. What's one nation between friends? Go ahead. Annihilate them."

Are you with me so far? Do you need to go to the concession stand and get a pop? Okay. Because now is when the story really gets interesting. Mordi gets wind of what's going on, and he's worried that the entire nation of the Jews is going to be destroyed, so he sends a message to Esther. It says, "Esther, look what's going to happen here. This Haman guy is going to destroy everybody. Remember you're a Jew just like me. We're going to be destroyed. You need to go and talk to the king." She sends back a message. She says, "I can't talk to the king. You know that nobody can come into his presence unless they're invited. If they come uninvited, the sentence is death. There's only one small exception and, by the way, he hasn't wanted to see me in a month." That's when Mordecai replies back to Esther and, to paraphrase it, he says, "Maybe God has put you in this royal position for such a time as this, for this moment right here right now. Maybe that's why you're queen." Esther thinks about it and says that's what needs to happen. She needs to come to the rescue of her people, so she approaches the king. Haman is there. She knows that he is the culprit behind this, and she says to the king that she has a request. Sure enough, he extends the royal scepter. She's invited in. He says, "What is your request?" She says, "Do me a favor, King. Come to a banquet that I'm preparing and why don't you bring your good buddy, Haman, along with you?" So they have one banquet that afternoon. Now Haman, an egomaniac already, thinks this is great. Only he, of all the other officials, has been invited to a banquet with the queen and the king; so he leaves that day feeling on top of the world. He has been invited now to another banquet the next day. But, wouldn't you know it, his day is ruined because, as he walks out of the temple, there's Mordi. And Mordi will not bow down when Haman comes by. This really, really irritates him; so he goes home and he brings all of his friends around and he starts bragging to them about all the wealth that he has and all of his power and the fact that he's already been to one banquet with the queen and king and I'm going tomorrow. He says, "But everything doesn't matter because I've got this Mordecai dude who will not honor me." So his wife and his friends say, "Why don't you just tonight build a huge gallows and have him hanged on it tomorrow? The king will do that for you." Good idea. He gets a good night's rest.

But at the same time, King Xerxes is trying to sleep. King Xerxes cannot sleep, so he decides, what every good king should do, he calls someone in to read to him. And he says, "Read from the chronicles of my reign." So they start reading about all the things that have happened while he is king. They come to the point of Mordecai who saved him from the plot that was there to assassinate him. And so the king asked, "What did we do for Mordecai? He saved the king's life." They looked back, and they say, "Oh, it got past us, King. We didn't do anything for Mordecai." So he says, "Well, I've got to do something for Mordecai." He spends the rest of the night thinking about it and decides to ask his good friend, Haman, how he could give honor to Mordecai. Are you catching the irony here? This is true. This is scripture.

So Haman comes in. Unbeknownst to him, the king starts saying, "There's a man that I want to honor. How would you say I should do that?" Haman thinks it's him. So he says, "Well, I'd dress him up in maybe your clothes and then I'd parade him all around the kingdom so that all the people would know what great honor he has." Good Xerxes says, "Good idea. I'd like you to go down, grab Mordecai, and do that." So Haman spends the rest of his day pulling around this guy that doesn't respect him.

The second banquet comes in. Esther is there. Finally, the king says, "Okay, what is it that you want?" And that's where we read the scripture today where she says that there is this man who wants to destroy all of my people, all of my nation. And the king says, "Well who is this offender?" "It is the vile Haman." And Haman ends up getting hung on the gallows that he built for Mordecai. That is the story of Esther.

You could look at it as a bunch of coincidences that sort of came together, but we know better than that. There can't be that many coincidences that come together. From the very beginning, when Mordecai gets the idea that maybe Esther could be in the running for the queen, from the time when he overhears, just because he happened to be at the gate at the right place at the right time about the plot to kill the king, all the way up to the king extending the scepter so that Esther could come into his presence, God set up all the circumstances. Everything in their lives worked together for this moment. Mordecai picks up on that. He says, "Maybe you're put in this royal position for such a time as this." See, God was saying, "Seize the moment, Esther. Step out in faith. You are part of my plan to save my people." Now Esther could have shriveled back in fear, all the things that could have happened to her. She could have lost her life. She could have lost her royal position. All those things were very real to her, but she saw God's hand at work and so she stepped out in faith. She seized the moment. And because of that, the entire nation was saved. Because of that, God's people would continue. God's people would continue up into the point where the deliverer, the Savior, the Messiah, would finally come from that chosen race.

You see, life is not just a series of circumstances. It's not just random events that happened. We see it throughout the entire Old Testament. God put people in the right place at the right time. God set up the circumstances so that His plan could be fulfilled, so that His will could be accomplished through them. That's why scripture tells us in the New Testament that, at the right time, at the right moment, God sent forth His son born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those under the law. For thousands of years, God had set up the circumstances. God had used people at certain places to step out in faith to be a part of His plan so, at the right moment, His son could enter into the world. And even Jesus, even the circumstances surrounding Jesus' life, they were all set up so that He could be the deliverer, He could be the Savior. In fact, Jesus Himself was confronted with a moment where He had to seize the moment and step out in faith because He was a true human being. He had His fears. He had those times when He was scared about what was coming up. We see it in the Garden of Gethsemane, do we not? There, the fears are with Jesus. And He prays to the Father. He says, "If there's another way, take this cup from me." But then He steps out in faith and He says, "But not my will. Your will, Father. Your will be done." And God's will was that He would go to the cross. And Jesus stepped out in faith believing in His father in heaven, and so He allowed us to nail Him to the cross. He allowed the sins of mankind to be cast upon Him. He trusted and believed that, through that, the Father would offer forgiveness to all of creation. He trusted and believed that the Father would call Him forth from the grace three days later so that His victory could be shared with all who believe in Him.

God set everything in place. Circumstances and events unknown to people at the time so that Jesus could be there at the right moment at the right time so that He could give up His life for you and for your salvation. And, because of that, how many millions, billions of people have been saved? All that has happened, all those people from the Old Testament and the New Testament, in fact, people from throughout history, God has placed them at the right part, at the right time and, because of that, you and I are here this morning. Because of the circumstances in God's plan, the circumstances of people's lives, because of what seemingly were coincidences that happened, because some of your forefathers and mothers were at the right place and the right time, because they passed down the faith to you, you're here this morning. And it continues on even for today. God continues to work through the circumstances of our lives. He puts us in the right place at the right time and who knows by your actions and by your words how many lives can be changed for an eternity? Who knows what part that you play in God's overall plan for the world and for His people? What He calls upon us to do is to look at life through the eyes of faith, to not see life as just random occurrences but to see it through the eyes of faith and recognizing that every circumstance is an opportunity to be a part of God's plan, that every conversation that we're involved in, every activity that we get ourselves into, but who knows what a difference that might make for one person, ten people, a thousand people, we don't know. Because God has set it all in place. It's not just happenstance. It's not just coincidence. Look at the evidence from scripture as God gives us a bird's eye view of the life of Esther and see how He used all those circumstances to finally fulfill His plan. So it is with us. And just as Esther was called upon in a moment to seize the moment and to step out in faith, I'm convinced that there are times in our lives when God calls upon us to seize the moment, to step out in faith, to step out in the unknown and to do something He's asking us to do. It would be easy to give in to our fears, easy to give in to our doubts as they creep in and say what will really happen and will this really matter? But it's because people stepped out in faith that some of you are here this morning.

We're going to be welcoming in new members to our congregation this morning, the next service and at 11:00. I know that some of those members are joining this congregation because one of our fellow members, a friend of theirs, invited them to church, invited them to come here and to hear God's word. They stepped out in faith. They seized the moment. You know that they had fears and doubts. What will this person think if I invite them to church? Will I come off wrong? Will I come off as being overly religious or overly spiritual? But they forewent those fears. They stepped out in faith. They seized the moment. And, because of that, God's family is growing this morning. I know that some of the members that are going to be joining here passed by our building many times. But something was happening inside of them and circumstances were around them until one Sunday morning, they stepped out. They stepped out and they let go of their fears of feeling uncomfortable in here, of feeling out of place, and they stepped through the doors and they were welcomed into God's house. And because of that, because they seized the moment, our family of believers is growing this morning.

How many countless other stories could we find just in our congregation of circumstances, so called coincidences, that have happened, of times when you have stepped out in faith, when you stepped out in faith and you changed the eternal destiny? It may be one person or a family or many people. How many times have the young people that take the mission trips down to Mexico or to L.A. stepped out in faith and, we've read about it in our newsletter, how lives were changed for an eternity. Because God set the circumstances there. He provided the opportunity. They seized the moment, and they stepped out in faith.

My friends, there's going to come an opportunity for you, an opportunity for you in the future where God will set the stage and He will challenge you. He will challenge you to seize the moment and to step out in faith. I don't know what those opportunities will be. Maybe the opportunity is simply to stand up for what you believe in the crowd of friends that are around you. Maybe it's going to be to stand up and invite somebody to church or to your small group meeting or something else that is happening. Maybe it's just going to be that you're going to step up and you're going to go on one of the mission trips. Maybe you're going to step up and you're going to start working in God's kingdom on a more regular basis or on a full-time basis. I don't know what the challenges are going to be, but I do know that every aspect of your life matters, that every conversation, every circumstance that God is active in that, sooner or later, the opportunity will be there. And we can pray by God's grace we recognize it through the eyes of faith and we seize the moment, we step out in faith. And who knows how God's going to bless that. Who knows how many lives will be touched, how many lives will be changed? Your life matters. It's part of God's plan. Seize the moment when it comes. Step out in faith. Amen.

Copyright 2003 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church