Walk Through the Bible: Esther
Text for Sermon: Esther 1:1-3, 11-12, 19; 2:15-17;4:13-16; 7:3-6, 10
Everyone loves a good story, and Esther is an exceptionally great story. It is great literature. It has all the ingredients a great story needs.
We have a pronounced conflict between good and evil, we have a brave, beautiful heroine, some carousing at the royal court, palace and harem intrigues, a Cinderella motif (an orphan girl marries the emperor), a really fine villain with a cape and a waxed mustache, helpless victims rescued just in the nick of time, profound reversals of fortune, great pride going before a great fall, open battle, and poetic justice. What more could you possibly ask for? DW
Esther shares with Daniel the interesting distinction of taking place entirely outside of the Promised Land.
Esther shares with the Song of Solomon, the interesting distinction of never mentioning God’s name.
There are no miracles, no divine interventions. There are no prophetic or Messianic promises. Prayer is never mentioned, nor any of the central elements of Israelite worship. There is no mention of the temple, of Jerusalem or the Torah/Law. There is no mention of dietary laws or injunctions against intermarriage with non-Jews. The book almost seems like a secular story.
“Where is God in all of this? What is God doing? Is He absent or is He present? If He is present, then why does suffering and evil seem to be winning the day? Why is God so hidden?
God is there but He remains off stage, out of sight, directing and orchestrating but not showing Himself. This book is like an unsigned painting that makes us search for clues.
As some say, while the name of God is never mentioned, the finger of God is everywhere present. We are not seeking for God in a place where He is absent, He is clearly there.
In our Bibles Esther is the last of the historical books. But the events of the story take place between the events of Ezra and Nehemiah during the reign of the Persian king Ahasuerus (or Xerxes I) from 486 to 464.
History tells us King Ahasuerus ruled over the greatest empire on the face of the earth at that time stretching from Egypt to India.
He had a vast army and a navy of fabulous size. He was a force to be reckoned with, a savage military leader, and a tyrant as an emperor.
Let me kill two birds with one stone and summarize the story in a way that also reveals the great theme of the story. It just so happens.