I wonder if you are a fan of pantomimes? I wonder if you have a favourite? Aladdin, Puss in Boots, Cinderella, Peter Pan. I know that some families have a tradition of going to the Pantomime every year. We never really got into that, but I’ve helped out with a few school trips to Pantomimes. One thing that I’ve noticed is that every pantomime needs a villain, someone the audience can hiss and boo, and shout “he’s behind you” when the villain is sneaking up on the hero. Whether it’s Captain Hook or the Horrible Sisters, every pantomime needs a villain. In the events we’re looking at today, the villain is a man called Haman. In good pantomime tradition, when the story of Esther is read on the Jewish festival that celebrates her courage, and Haman’s name is mentioned, the congregation make as much noise as possible to drown it out.
But, although it does have some features of a pantomime in the way that it’s told, this account is not a pantomime, it is an account of real people living under a dire threat, and how they relied on God to see them through.
Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been exploring different accounts of people in the Bible who found God in the chaos of painful and difficult situations. We met Paul in prison, and thought about how he coped with that. We met Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, threatened by fire, and experiencing God’s presence in the middle of that. Today we meet Esther, Mordecai, and the people of the God living under the threat of extermination. How did they live through that, and what might we be able to learn about how we deal with situations when we are under threat?
The book of Esther begins in the court of the great Persian King Xerxes, who we know from other historical sources did indeed rule over a great empire stretching all the way to India. He is having a great festival with all his army chiefs and government officials. This festival went on for days, and the King drank a lot. At one stage, well and truly the worse for wear, he summoned his beautiful Queen, Vashti, to be paraded before his court. She knew he was drunk and refused to come. Angry and humiliated, he deposed her, and started the search for a new queen.
His attention was caught be a Jewish beauty called Esther. Many Jewish people had been brought to Persia to live in exile when their land had been invaded and Jerusalem defeated some years before. Esther captivated the king and he married her and made her his new queen, but she never told him that she was Jewish, it was too risky.
Now Esther had an older cousin, who had taken her in when her mother and father died, a man called Mordecai. He had a bit of a dispute going with a man called Haman. He is the villain of the piece. He was one of the king’s top officials, and was used to people bowing down to him as he went through the city. Mordecai wouldn’t do this, and it made Haman furious. So, to get back at Mordecai, Haman persuaded the King that the Jews were not integrating into Persian society, and were not keeping the King’s law and so should be destroyed. The King gave Haman permission to do this, and he began planning for the massacre.
Mordecai heard about the plot, and his reaction is what we heard read from chapter 4. He is beside himself. He knows what danger they are in, how real the threat is. And so, he asks Esther to go to the King and plead for mercy on her people’s behalf. As we read on in chapter 4 we discover that this would be risky for Esther. She was only meant to go and see the King if he’d sent for her. Go on her own initiative and she might be put to death. Still, in the end, she sent to Mordecai, agreeing to do this, and asking him to organise the people to fast for her. In those times fasting and praying went together – Esther was asking people to pray for her.
After three days of prayer and fasting, Esther took the plunge and went in to see the King. What would he do? He held out his royal sceptre towards her and welcomed her in. She was smart, though, she didn’t ask for mercy straight away. She invited the King and Haman to a banquet that evening. She had a feast prepared, and plied them with drink. But still she waited. At the end of the evening the King asked her what she wanted from him, and she asked him and Haman to a banquet the next night as well.
The next evening, the King grew ever more impatient and insisted that Esther tell him what was on her mind. She laid out the whole story, how her people were under threat of death, and that it was Haman that had plotted it all. The King ordered that Haman be impaled on a stake that Haman had set up to execute Mordecai, and gave permission for the Jewish people to defend themselves when the death squads came to wipe them out. Esther, Mordecai, and all their people lived on in safety, and Mordecai rose in the kingdom to be second only to the King.
Those of you who know the story of Esther well will know that I’ve missed out a few of the details for the sake of time, if you don’t know it so well, do go and read it for yourselves to get the other bits. But even as it is, what a story, fit for any pantomime script.
But, as I said, for all it’s pantomime characteristics, this is an account of what happened to real people in a real situation. They really were under threat, in danger, and their actions can be an example to us when we feel threatened, vulnerable, or outnumbered.
There are three things that I’d like to highlight that Esther did. She prayed and fasted. She stood up and took a risk. She picked her moment.
So, what does it look like to pray when we feel vulnerable or threatened? I don’t think that there’s a magic formula to this – it’s just about telling God how we feel and asking for God’s intervention in the situation and for God’s peace to sustain us through it. Fasting while we pray isn’t about trying to twist God’s arm, it is just a practical expression of how seriously we take the thing we’re praying about. For some of us that might mean stopping eating for a little while, or it might mean stopping doing something else so that we can focus on prayer. Sometimes that practical thing we do is the prayer – especially when we can’t find the words to express how we feel. Something really important to notice is that they prayed and fasted together. Esther with her attendants, and Mordecai and the people. We’re not meant to be alone in this.
Then Esther stood up and took a risk. We might say she went outside her comfort zone. It is possible that she would have escaped the slaughter – she was Queen, and the King didn’t know she was Jewish. But she stood up for her people, she put herself in harm’s way for them. This took courage. Sometimes we have to put our big girl/boy pants on, take a deep breath, and stand up for ourselves or for others. To be honest, sometimes this doesn’t go as well as it did for Esther. Jesus did it, and he ended up dying on a cross.
But, in the end, even Jesus’ story turned out well, as he was raised to life again. If we heed God’s call and command to lay our life down for others, as Jesus did, God will bring us through it.
Even with all that prayer support, and showing such courage, Esther wasn’t foolish or in a hurry. She picked her moment, she showed discernment and wisdom. It can be difficult to do this when we’re feeling vulnerable or under threat. Our tendency can be to go into flight or fight mode, to lash out, to speak without thinking, to rush in. One of the reasons that God gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit is to teach us wisdom, to guide us, to give us the words to speak in difficult situations. So we can ask for these things when we need them. We can ask for wisdom to know the right time to speak, and for the right words to speak.
Our lives are not pantomimes, but sometimes we will come across villains who mean us harm. We can end up in situations where we feel threatened or vulnerable. God is not hiding behind us. God is not a fairy Godmother. God is in those situations with us, so that we can bring them to him in prayer, draw on him for courage, and be inspired by him with the wisdom that we need to see us through.
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