Wisdom and foolishness, greatness and weakness
Text Esther 1 Time 10/11/13 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church
Do
you now the story of how Hudson Taylor, the great 19th century
missionary to China, was converted? “On a day which I shall never
forget, when I was about fifteen years of age,” he later wrote “my
dear mother being absent from home, I had a holiday, and in the
afternoon looked through my father`s library to find some book with
which to while away the unoccupied hours. Nothing attracting me, I
turned over a little basket of pamphlets, and selected from amongst
them a gospel tract which looked interesting, saying to myself,
'There will be a story at the commencement, and a sermon or moral at
the close: I will take the former and leave the latter for those who
like it.' I
sat down to read the little book in an utterly unconcerned state of
mind, believing indeed at the time that if there were any salvation
it was not for me, and with a distinct intention to put away the
tract as soon as it should seem prosy. ...” In fact he carried on
reading and was eventually converted. That reminds us of the power of
a story to draw people in.
You won't find a more intriguing story than the one found in the Book
of Esther. The Book of Esther is one of the most unusual of the Old
Testament books. Perhaps the most unusual thing about it is the fact
that it never mentions God's name. Imagine that - a book in the Bible
with no mention of God! It is full of God in fact, as we shall see,
but the actual name is not mentioned even once. The only other book
like that is Song of Solomon but even that book mentions God at least
once near the end.
The
Book comes from the days when Israel was in exile and it tells of how
due to the efforts of one particularly malicious man, a man called
Haman, it looked as though the Jews were going to be wiped out as a
people. In an amazing series of providences, however, God was able to
turn the tables on Haman and through his servants Mordecai and his
cousin, Esther, after whom the book is named, the Jews were saved.
The book tells not only the story but explains why the Jews have
annually celebrated ever since the feast of Purim.
The
Jews really love this book and read it every year Purim comes around.
I'm told that the children especially have a lot of fun booing
whenever the villain Haman is mentioned and cheering whenever
Mordecai is mentioned. I remember doing it with my own kids once.
Christians were rather slower to appreciate this book, no doubt
because of its failure to mention God. They say that for the first
seven centuries no Christian even bothered to write a commentary on
the book and it was only at the time of the Reformation that people
began to appreciate it again. It is a very important book, however,
as it teaches us about God's providence and deals with a crucial
moment in history when (like at the time of the Exodus from Egypt)
God's people the Jews were in danger of being wiped out. If that had
happened then there would be no Messiah and so no salvation and we
would have nothing at all to celebrate tonight.
1.
Consider these characteristics of the Book of Esther
I want us to look at Chapter 1 tonight but let me begin by mentioning
some of the characteristics of the whole book.
1.
God not named. As we've said, it doesn't mention God's name at all.
Nevertheless, it is full of God. It is a series of striking
coincidences or providences that leads to the Jews being saved from
Haman. First the Jewess Esther becomes queen and all that leads up to
that; next Mordecai, her relative, overhears a plot against the king;
then in Chapter 6 the king is unable to sleep, which is important.
That's followed by Haman coming to the palace to ask for Mordecai to
be hanged at the very moment the king is looking for someone to
advise him on how to honour Mordecai. Then there is the moment Haman
throws himself on Esther in an attempt to beg for mercy just as the
king returns so that he thinks Haman is molesting the queen! The Jews
are saved not by their own ingenuity but by God's providence. Haman
and his friends cast the pur
or lot early on displaying their belief in fate and chance but it is
clearly God who is actually in control.
God is not mentioned nor even prayer to him but there is the fast
that Mordecai and Esther call, implying a rejection of fate or chance
for trust in God to act or not act as he should choose in line with
his character and promises.
The book then is highly theological. What it shows is that, as it has
been put, “God is most present when he is most absent”. My boys
have all attended a humanist school. I used to ask them (I still do
sometimes) “Did they mention God at all today?” Nearly always the
answer was no. So why did I ask the question? Well, once you have
that question in your head, you keep noticing where God
should be mentioned. You go into school and you have an assembly all
about being kind and helping each other or whatever but not
mentioning God. First lesson is design and technology and the teacher
talks about aerodynamics and mentions birds as a good example; then
its science and again there's some aspect of God's creation under the
microscope and you are confronted by him again, and so on in history
and English and Maths, etc. In a Christian school all this would be
drawn out but not there. So Esther is a story of deliverance not like
Exodus where God clearly takes centre stage but more like the story
of Joseph or Ruth where he stays in the background but is most
clearly at work.
2. Persian. It is a very Persian book. The book begins and ends in
Persia unlike Nehemiah which begins in Persia but ends in Jerusalem.
Jeremiah had told the Jews to settle in the lands where they were
exiled and to seek God's blessing for those lands. In Mordecai and
Esther, ad with Daniel and his three friends, we people working that
out in practice. Just in this first chapter we have Persian names,
references to the Persian empire, Persian wealth, Persian law, etc.
There is some quite exotic about it. Its Persian-ness is part of what
gives the book its charm and the fact it takes place in a basically
hostile environment is one of the way in which we can identify with
it as Christians today.
3.
Jewish. At the same time it is a very Jewish book. That may sound a
strange thing to say about an Old Testament book but when I say it is
very Jewish I mean Jewish in a way more recognisable to us today as
Jewish than in other parts of the Old Testament. Take the word Jew
itself (from a word referring to being from Judah or Judea). It is
only towards the end of the Old Testament that this word begins to be
used. It is only once in 2 Kings, twice in Daniel then 9 times in
Jeremiah and 7 and 8 times in Ezra and Nehemiah. In Esther it comes
up 40 times! More than that Esther is about the Jewish people and
their deliverance as a people and at the end a Jewish feast. Its
chief hero is Mordecai, called six times Mordecai
the Jew and
its villain is the classic anti-Semite Haman is called five times the
enemy of the Jews. One
writer says “There is no more stridently Jewish book in the Old
Testament”.
4. Unusual heroes. The book features, in Mordecai and Esther, quite
unusual heroes. Both are fully immersed in their Persian culture and
yet they maintain their Jewishness, sometimes in what seem to us odd
ways. Mordecai refuses to bow to Haman thus emphasising and drawing
attention to his Jewishness (something he urges Esther not to do).
Esther, of course, end up in a pagan beauty contest which she wins
only to end up marrying an uncircumcised pagan.
5. Humour. There certainly does appear to be some humour in this
book. We will see it in the first chapter where the king of 127
provinces cannot control his own wife and it is there in some of the
providences we have mentioned including the king having the annals of
his reign read to try and help him sleep and proud Haman's shame and
final desperate lunge.
6. Banqueting. One final theme worth mentioning is that of
banqueting. The book begins with a banquet and ends with a feast and
in between Esther organises two special banquets to which Haman is
invited. In the same book, of course, it is a special fast that is
called that is so crucial to the outcome of the story.
Coming then to the opening chapter at last I want to say three more
things
2. Consider man's greatness and wisdom
As suggested, the opening verses
have a very Persian feel. One writer says “with
an economy of words the story-teller
transports his listeners to a fabulous oriental world, and to a time
when the Persian empire was still young.” We are immediately taken
to long ago and far away with the words (1) This is what
happened during the time of Xerxes, (that
is his Greek name, his Persian one Ahasuerus is used) the
Xerxes who ruled (486-465 BC)
over 127 provinces stretching from India (really
what we now call Pakistan) to Cush: (just
north of Ethiopia). At that time we
read in verse 2 King Xerxes reigned from his royal throne
in the citadel of Susa. He was
the son of Darius and a great builder. He also took on the Greeks but
was defeated in 480 and 479 BC. Susa had been the capital of Elam but
the Persians had taken it over and rebuilt it with a fortified
citadel at its heart 120 feet above the surrounding area. Xerxes had
fought of Egyptian and Babylonian opposition to retain the throne.
So
here is this powerful and wealthy king ruling from Susa over 127
provinces stretching from Sudan
to Pakistan. Perhaps we can pick up on an implied criticism of the
court being for the rich not the poor but mainly the writer is simply
telling it as it is. It is grand and impressive.
We read (3) and in the
third year of his reign 483 BC
he gave a banquet for all his nobles and officials. The
military leaders of Persia and Media, the princes, and the nobles
(|Persian word) of the
provinces were present. (In
Daniel it was Medes and Persians but by this stage it is Persians and
Medes). For a full 180 days we
are told he displayed the vast wealth of his kingdom and
the splendour and glory of his majesty. It
is unlikely that the banquet lasted 180 days. Rather, he
displayed the vast wealth of his kingdom and the splendour and glory
of his majesty then When
these days were over, the king gave a banquet, lasting seven days, in
the enclosed garden of the king's palace, for all the people from the
least to the greatest, who were in the citadel of Susa. Susa
was hot in summer and an outdoor setting would have been most
conducive. The garden had hangings of white and blue linen,
fastened with cords the royal
colours of white linen and purple material to silver rings
on marble pillars. You can
picture the luxuriousness of it all perhaps. There were
couches of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement of porphyry, marble,
mother-of-pearl and other costly stones. In
days where food and drink was not as easy to come by as it is now
Wine was served in goblets (more
like large hunting horns) of gold, each one different from
the other, and the royal wine was abundant, in keeping with the
king's liberality. By the king's command such
laws were considered most important in Persia each guest
was allowed to drink in his own way, for the king instructed all the
wine stewards to serve each man what he wished.
Queen
Vashti (Herodotus calls her
Amestris) also gave a banquet for the women in the royal
palace of King Xerxes. Men and
women often ate together in Persia as with Esther's later banquets.
Perhaps it was sheer numbers that led to this division.
The
whole description speaks of opulence, luxury, pomp, wealth, grandeur.
Here is a king who is great and who is wise and whose word is law.
There is a generosity and a dignity at work here. Had there ever been
a king as great as this man Xerxes ever before? Well, perhaps there
hadn't. We don't have to be churlish and deny it. There was a
greatness and grandeur about it and a certain amount of power and
wisdom too.
We
see similar things today. It was the Lord Mayor's show yesterday,
quite an impressive display with a gold coach, etc. Tomorrow is the
Lord Mayor's banquet at which the Prime Minister will speak – again
all very grand. A certain amount of pomp and circumstance is in
itself no bad thing.
3. Consider
man's weakness and foolishness
So
far so good then. However, just as the party is in full swing so
things begin to unravel. We read in verse 10 that On
the seventh day, when King Xerxes was in high spirits from wine, he
was a little drunk we might say he commanded the seven
eunuchs who served him - Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, Abagtha,
Zethar and Carcas - to bring before him Queen Vashti, wearing her
royal crown, in order to display her beauty to the people and nobles,
for she was lovely to look at. Xerxes
is aware of his power and now he wants to make use of that power and
so he commands his queen to be brought before his guests. Now we do
not know exactly why but we are told in verse 12 But when
the attendants delivered the king's command, Queen Vashti refused to
come. And here is an irony. Here
is a man with all power and every thing he could desire, it seems,
but his own wife will not do as he tells her. He is not God.
And
how does he react? Here is another bad sign. First we read (12b) Then
the king became furious and burned with anger. That
only serves to diminish our view of the king and excite our sympathy
towards Vashti.
Next we read (13) that Since
it was customary for the king to consult experts in matters of law
and justice, he spoke with the wise men who understood the times and
were closest to the king – and
we get another very Persian list of seven Carshena,
Shethar, Admatha, Tarshish, Meres, Marsena and Memucan, the seven
nobles of Persia and Media who had special access to the king and
were highest in the kingdom.
Xerxes
is really at a loss what to do. He has been made a fool of and it is
his own fault. How is he going to get out of it? According
to law, what must be done to Queen Vashti? he asked. She has not
obeyed the command of King Xerxes that the eunuchs have taken to her.
It is clearly her fault, he says, but his only quandary is exactly
how the law of the land can best deal with this.
We then read how one of these men
Memucan, a star politician if there ever was one (16ff) replied
in the presence of the king and the nobles, Queen Vashti has done
wrong, not only against the king but also against all the nobles and
the peoples of all the provinces of King Xerxes. For the queen's
conduct will become known to all the women, and so they will despise
their husbands and say, King Xerxes commanded Queen Vashti to be
brought before him, but she would not come. This very day the Persian
and Median women of the nobility who have heard about the queen's
conduct will respond to all the king's nobles in the same way. There
will be no end of disrespect and discord. Like
many a speech by a politician, it is at the same time very clever and
complete bunkum. He paints the
situation in lurid and alarmist colours as politicians often do. What
on earth are they going to do? He draws the heat off Xerxes by
suggesting that the real problem is with Vashti and the precedent
she has set for other women. He knows his audience – all men, who
are hardly going to argue with him.
Memucan has a plan Therefore,
if it pleases the king, he says
let him issue a royal decree and let it be written in the
laws of Persia and Media, which cannot be repealed, that Vashti (she
is no longer Queen Vashti for Memucan) is never again to
enter the presence of King Xerxes. (She
refused to come once, let her never come again). Also let
the king give her royal position to someone else who is better than
she (that is the crucial line
for the rest of the story) Then when the king's edict is
proclaimed throughout all his vast realm, and
this is the nut that this particular sledge hammer is designed to
crack all the women will respect their husbands, from the
least to the greatest.
It
is a massive over-reaction and utter madness, of course, but we read
(21) The king and his nobles were pleased with this advice,
so the king did as Memucan proposed.
And so suddenly without further ado
the great might of the vast Persian bureaucracy that existed swings
into action and we read that (22) He sent dispatches to all
parts of the kingdom, to each province in its own script and to each
people in its own language, proclaiming in each people's tongue that
every man should be ruler over his own household.
And
so in one chapter, in one man, Xerxes, we see both man's greatness
and wisdom in all its splendour and man's weakness and foolishness in
all its ridiculousness. At the beginning he is rich and powerful,
high but generous. By the end he is reduced to drunken, spluttering
anger as he can't even deal with a domestic spat without a massive
over reaction.
The
Persians were proud of their unchanging law but it proves an Achilles
heel here. “There ought to be a law against what Vashti has done”.
That was their reaction but law cannot deal with every issue. What a
contrast with the way later in the book Esther risks her life to come
to Xerxes. She says (4:16) I will go to the king, even
though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish. She
thus shows that despite what Xerxes thought law is not everything and
it cannot solve everything.
Memucan and his team may have been
clever but they were not wise. Not only did they turn what could have
been a minor matter into a major one but they made sure that the
story of Xerxes and Vashti went everywhere, showing Xerxes up as a
fool and closing the door to any reconciliation between him and
Vashti. Chapter 2 begins Later when the anger of King
Xerxes had subsided, he remembered Vashti and what she had done and
what he had decreed about her. There
is a hint there that may be Xerxes regretted what happened. But there
was no going back in his world, no saying “I made a mistake. I was
wrong.” What a cruel, cruel world that is.
4.
Consider the unseen one who may seem weak and foolish but is truly
great and wise
One
commentator writes about this chapter pointing out the subtle way the
writer of it has shown Xerxes as he has. They then say “The
security and confidence of the author,
who could comment in this way on the highest ruler in the
contemporary world as well as on the court and its intrigues,
is striking, and witnesses in a totally unconscious way to the
efficacy of faith in the Living God.
This writer knew nothing
of an identity crisis,
nor was he dismayed by the inadequacies of human government of
which he was so aware, because of the overarching government of the
one he worshipped but did not name.” We too must learn to look at
the world with a similar insight. See its wisdom and greatness, see
it weakness and foolishness. See too that
God
is all wise and great, as foolish and weak and even not there as he
may seem to be
