Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Then King Xerxes said to Queen Esther and
Mordecai the Jew, “I have given Esther the property of Haman, and he has been
impaled on a pole because he tried to destroy the Jews. Now go
ahead and send a message to the Jews in the king’s name, telling them whatever
you want, and seal it with the king’s signet ring. But remember that whatever has already been
written in the king’s name and sealed with his signet ring can never be revoked.”
So on June 25 the king’s
secretaries were summoned, and a decree was written exactly as Mordecai
dictated. It was sent to the Jews and to
the highest officers, the governors, and the nobles of all the 127 provinces
stretching from India to Ethiopia. The
decree was written in the scripts and languages of all the peoples of the
empire, including that of the Jews. The decree was written in
the name of King Xerxes and sealed with the king’s signet ring. Mordecai sent the dispatches by swift messengers,
who rode fast horses especially bred for the king’s service. The king’s decree gave the Jews in every
city authority to unite to defend their lives. They were allowed to kill, slaughter, and
annihilate anyone of any nationality or province who might attack them or their
children and wives, and to take the property of their enemies. The
day chosen for this event throughout all the provinces of King Xerxes was March
7 of the next year. A copy of
this decree was to be issued as law in every province and proclaimed to all
peoples, so that the Jews would be ready to take revenge on their enemies on
the appointed day. So urged on by the king’s command, the
messengers rode out swiftly on fast horses bred for the king’s service. The same decree was also proclaimed in the
fortress of Susa. Then Mordecai left the
king’s presence, wearing the royal robe of blue and white, the great crown of
gold, and an outer cloak of fine linen and purple. And the people of Susa
celebrated the new decree. The Jews were filled with joy and
gladness and were honored everywhere. In every province and
city, wherever the king’s decree arrived, the Jews rejoiced and had a great
celebration and declared a public festival and holiday. And many of the people of the land became Jews
themselves, for they feared what the Jews might do to them. Esther 8:7-17
The story
of Esther turns one of our naïve house theories upside-down, that of an instant-ready
Heaven, where there is nothing more to be accomplished; the principle of the Laws
of the Medes and Persians doesn’t work that way.
Haman, the
evil-plotting, would-be throne-stealer, has duped the king, a basically good
guy, into issuing a holocaust order against the Jews that on a coming day they
would all be killed. Mordecai, Esther’s
uncle convinces Queen Esther to plead with the king for the lives of their people. The evil protagonist, Haman gets wind of Esther
and her uncle’s activity and has a large wooden pole prepared to impale Mordecai. As Haman’s evil is exposed, the king, who
dearly loves Esther, is so furious he has Haman impaled on the very pole meant
for Mordecai.
This is a
plot that has thickened most Hollywood dramas.
But there is more. According to
the Law of the Medes and Persians, a decree issued by the king cannot be
reversed. According to the previous
decree the Jews must die. So, the king gives
Esther the right to issue a further decree in His name. She grants the legality of Jews to defend
themselves without being held accountable.
The day is saved, and Mordecai is elevated to being King Xerxes’
right-hand man.
For You Today
Sometimes
our view of Heaven is of a blurry-tunnel where we emerge ethereally peaceful on
the other shore, with every complication figured-out. God’s book, including Esther (which,
paradoxically, never mentions the name of God), tells us otherwise. As in Esther, evil is thwarted, and righteous
justice prevails, so will Heaven set at right that which has been wrong. But it won’t be entirely without our
involvement. As Esther and Mordecai had
to scramble to come up with a solution to a messed-up situation – a holocaust
set in motion by a misguided human choice – so believers will be charged with
ruling in Christ’s kingdom.
I believe
this is one of the chief reasons for our threescore-and-ten existence here on
planet earth. There is an apprenticeship
necessary to become the kind of people God will use in ruling His beloved creation. If that were not so, there could be no
meaning to the pain we experience in this life.
God could take us directly to Heaven if He desired, but He doesn’t, so
there is meaning in what we do and experience in this life. Like the laws of the Medes and Persians, we
cannot change the decrees of the past…but we can cooperate with God by opening
our hearts to learn His ways, do His will in His Kingdom, and, like Mordecai,
one day fully live-into that role of communing face-to-face with our Creator.
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