This was actually a place I came to in the first week or two after my son died. I began searching Scripture for all the stories that resulted in a parent, or in this case parent figure, that had to give up a child and had to live the rest of their days without them. If you read the text Mordecai never actually gets to speak to Esther after she was taken. He only ever gets to communicate with her via a eunuch. I have prayed to God a lot and have asked him to speak to my son. And on Mother's Day, 3 weeks after he died, God answered a prayer I had asked for, when wanting a "sign" that my son was okay. Prayer is the closest I'll get this side of heaven, to communicating with my son ever again.
Also, a few years ago, I led a study on Esther and a former Missionary lady made gave an interesting perspective. We tend to view Esther's being taken into the king's harem as all bad, but these women were given the best of everything. Better quality food, clothes, jewelry, bathing was more frequent. They were taken from their homes and family, to never see them again, but to be given a much better life, albeit materialistic.
And that made me think about life after death and the parallels from this story. When we die, we're taken from our loved ones. They're left to live their lives without us. We're clothed in Christ's righteousness instead of our "rags" that we make for ourselves within our means. We get to feast on the tree with every fruit and there's the wedding feast. Baptism can be seen as the bathing and the Holy Spirit's work in our transformation as the "beaty treatments" before we're brought to the King. The mention of all the eunuchs in the king's court also hints a bit at what Jesus said about the husband/wife relationship after death and being like the angels who neither marry, nor are given in marriage. And the parallels to Haman and the Accuser/Satan are obvious and like in the story we're given the authority over the power of the enemy to fight back. And I think Esther is more a type of Christ then a picture of ourselves. Christ risked death and defeated it and in doing so gave us the power to overcome and walk free.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I think one of the things that makes Esther such a rich book is that it refuses to fit neatly into simple categories. Loss and providence, danger and privilege, hiddenness and courage all seem to sit side by side in the story. That's part of why people keep finding new layers in it. I also appreciate your point about Esther pointing us toward Messiah through her willingness to risk everything for the sake of her people.
The providence of GOD is something we can only see looking backwards. As Mordecai in essence said to Esther, "GOD's plan will be done, if not through you, then He will use someone else."
Ever since Genesis 3:15, Satan knew that his head would be crushed under the heal of the one who will reconcile us to GOD. How often have we seen in the Word that Satan has tried to wipe out the nation of Israel because of GOD's covenant with Abraham through whom "all the nations of the world shall be blessed"? GOD would not allow Haman's plan to succeed.
The plan of a man is in his head, but the Lord shall direct his steps. That's how walking in the will of God works. In '22 I went to state GOP convention to save our country. God controlled it all, all I ended up doing was raising my hand twice. We overturned the leadership of the GOP in my state.
What you are saying about Esther is the only way I ever heard it. I am truly grateful that I met the Lord , was born of God, and baptized in the Holy Spirit at thirty years old. I remember nothing from Sunday school, thank God.
One of the enemy's larger successes in removing the power from the ekklesia has been the replacement of discipleship with Sunday School.
It turned out that I was discipled by my blood father—who had met the Lord in his car driving home from work in his late forties. We never had a relationship when I was young. The result was that I read all these incredible stories as a young adult during my initial 2-year year period of voracious reading of the Bible from cover to cover—several times. That's when I first read Esther.
For the first two years, my father was mentoring me every evening usually while leading a different small home bible study. I went from drug-crazed hippy to a young man of God teaching scripture during this incredible time of change. Then the Lord sent me a Godly wife. >grin<
I am so grateful that the Lord set all of that up for me. I wouldn't have made it in the church as it was during the mid-seventies. As all of us do, I needed a mentor.
I know I am reacting from a 21st century American comfortable peacetime life when I say this, but I have a hard time picturing wanting to “feast with gladness” the day after killing 75,000 men, even if they were inherently evil, about to kill me, and it was God ordained. I feel myself being more humbled and grateful for deliverance but not necessarily ready for a happy feast. The same way I feel when I think about all the firstborns of the Egyptians being killed right before deliverance. It’s humbling, not necessarily celebratory at first.
However, I’ve not yet been on the brink of death or national genocide by an enemy so perhaps I will feel differently if that ever happens.
Hadassah’s courage is something to aspire to, for sure. May I be as brave if ever called to be.
I love the book of Esther, and totally agree with this. It’s NOT a fairy tale. I once preached it, inserting the line, “as luck would have it” at each plot turn to point out the entirely silent (but evident if you’re paying attention) involvement of God.
And in a challenging season of my own, I got weary of the “for such a time as this” inspirational quotes and dryly quoted back, “if I perish, I perish”. I found it quite freeing, haha. Just do the thing that seems right, in great uncertainty and under great pressure. If you perish, you perish, but at least you gave it a shot.
This was actually a place I came to in the first week or two after my son died. I began searching Scripture for all the stories that resulted in a parent, or in this case parent figure, that had to give up a child and had to live the rest of their days without them. If you read the text Mordecai never actually gets to speak to Esther after she was taken. He only ever gets to communicate with her via a eunuch. I have prayed to God a lot and have asked him to speak to my son. And on Mother's Day, 3 weeks after he died, God answered a prayer I had asked for, when wanting a "sign" that my son was okay. Prayer is the closest I'll get this side of heaven, to communicating with my son ever again.
Also, a few years ago, I led a study on Esther and a former Missionary lady made gave an interesting perspective. We tend to view Esther's being taken into the king's harem as all bad, but these women were given the best of everything. Better quality food, clothes, jewelry, bathing was more frequent. They were taken from their homes and family, to never see them again, but to be given a much better life, albeit materialistic.
And that made me think about life after death and the parallels from this story. When we die, we're taken from our loved ones. They're left to live their lives without us. We're clothed in Christ's righteousness instead of our "rags" that we make for ourselves within our means. We get to feast on the tree with every fruit and there's the wedding feast. Baptism can be seen as the bathing and the Holy Spirit's work in our transformation as the "beaty treatments" before we're brought to the King. The mention of all the eunuchs in the king's court also hints a bit at what Jesus said about the husband/wife relationship after death and being like the angels who neither marry, nor are given in marriage. And the parallels to Haman and the Accuser/Satan are obvious and like in the story we're given the authority over the power of the enemy to fight back. And I think Esther is more a type of Christ then a picture of ourselves. Christ risked death and defeated it and in doing so gave us the power to overcome and walk free.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I think one of the things that makes Esther such a rich book is that it refuses to fit neatly into simple categories. Loss and providence, danger and privilege, hiddenness and courage all seem to sit side by side in the story. That's part of why people keep finding new layers in it. I also appreciate your point about Esther pointing us toward Messiah through her willingness to risk everything for the sake of her people.
The providence of GOD is something we can only see looking backwards. As Mordecai in essence said to Esther, "GOD's plan will be done, if not through you, then He will use someone else."
Ever since Genesis 3:15, Satan knew that his head would be crushed under the heal of the one who will reconcile us to GOD. How often have we seen in the Word that Satan has tried to wipe out the nation of Israel because of GOD's covenant with Abraham through whom "all the nations of the world shall be blessed"? GOD would not allow Haman's plan to succeed.
The plan of a man is in his head, but the Lord shall direct his steps. That's how walking in the will of God works. In '22 I went to state GOP convention to save our country. God controlled it all, all I ended up doing was raising my hand twice. We overturned the leadership of the GOP in my state.
What you are saying about Esther is the only way I ever heard it. I am truly grateful that I met the Lord , was born of God, and baptized in the Holy Spirit at thirty years old. I remember nothing from Sunday school, thank God.
One of the enemy's larger successes in removing the power from the ekklesia has been the replacement of discipleship with Sunday School.
It turned out that I was discipled by my blood father—who had met the Lord in his car driving home from work in his late forties. We never had a relationship when I was young. The result was that I read all these incredible stories as a young adult during my initial 2-year year period of voracious reading of the Bible from cover to cover—several times. That's when I first read Esther.
For the first two years, my father was mentoring me every evening usually while leading a different small home bible study. I went from drug-crazed hippy to a young man of God teaching scripture during this incredible time of change. Then the Lord sent me a Godly wife. >grin<
I am so grateful that the Lord set all of that up for me. I wouldn't have made it in the church as it was during the mid-seventies. As all of us do, I needed a mentor.
I know I am reacting from a 21st century American comfortable peacetime life when I say this, but I have a hard time picturing wanting to “feast with gladness” the day after killing 75,000 men, even if they were inherently evil, about to kill me, and it was God ordained. I feel myself being more humbled and grateful for deliverance but not necessarily ready for a happy feast. The same way I feel when I think about all the firstborns of the Egyptians being killed right before deliverance. It’s humbling, not necessarily celebratory at first.
However, I’ve not yet been on the brink of death or national genocide by an enemy so perhaps I will feel differently if that ever happens.
Hadassah’s courage is something to aspire to, for sure. May I be as brave if ever called to be.
I love the book of Esther, and totally agree with this. It’s NOT a fairy tale. I once preached it, inserting the line, “as luck would have it” at each plot turn to point out the entirely silent (but evident if you’re paying attention) involvement of God.
And in a challenging season of my own, I got weary of the “for such a time as this” inspirational quotes and dryly quoted back, “if I perish, I perish”. I found it quite freeing, haha. Just do the thing that seems right, in great uncertainty and under great pressure. If you perish, you perish, but at least you gave it a shot.