Esther Part One Deep Dive
REIGNING IN EXILE | JAMES WEEKS
I know what you’re thinking. We all remember the Sunday school lessons, don’t we? The short story of Esther, the young Jewish girl—virtuous, brave and beautiful—who saved the day for God’s people. Well, it’s not quite the squeaky clean story you remember. Our Sunday school lessons may have helped us learn our way around the Bible, but they were often one-dimensional in their hermeneutic tact. By and large, the approach was to pick out the characters in the Old Testament and hold them up as heroes—as moral examples of faith and virtue. “Be like David,” they would say, “who valiantly fought the giant, Goliath.” “Be like Daniel who bravely defied the Babylonian king at risk of his own life.” “Be like Esther! Brave, beautiful, and pure.”
It’s here we need to hit pause for just a moment. What I don’t remember hearing in Sunday school (and probably for good reason) was that the story of Esther was actually one of great drama—violence, sexual exploitation, revenge, war, and compromise. But it is also a story of spiritual awakening and great courage. It is the story of the faithfulness of God, who, although hidden in this narrative, can be seen to be working in the messy chaos of humanity in order to preserve His people. Esther is a hero, no doubt. But not the hero you may think. Hers is not a story of strength and grit, but of vulnerability and humility.
By now you’re probably well aware that Israel has a chequered history of fleeting moments of covenant faithfulness, and then of stunning betrayal, disobedience and apostasy. It’s normally at this point in the exilic stories that a zealous hero emerges to save the day, but in this case, the story of Esther begins with preparations for her journey into the palace harem. Her Jewish identity, that which set her apart as one of God’s people, had been buried. Her entrance into the service of King Xerxes was not some cunning plot of espionage, as some have suggested. Esther had assimilated into the God-rejecting culture of her Persian masters. I often wonder what this experience was like for Esther. There must have a been a profound sense of conflict she felt. But then I wonder, why do we do the things we do? How many of our practices have we adopted without any real reason or thought?
As the story moves along, Esther’s cousin Mordecai learns of a secret plot to wipe out the Jewish people—a staggering act of evil and genocide. Esther is now at a crossroads. All her life she has lived as a Persian, she is even named after the Ancient Near Eastern god, Ishtar. The question is: will she continue to live a life of compromise, rejecting her Jewish blood and true identity, or will she choose faithfulness to the Jewish people and her God, even if it comes at a price?
It’s at this point we begin to see that our present-day setting is not all that different from that of Esther. We may not be physically exiled from our homes, but in some sense where we currently find ourselves is not our true home either—at least, not as it is meant to be, and not as it will be. The secular western culture which surrounds us in many ways has made belief in God harder than ever. It’s ironic when you think about it; secularism rails against the notion of any transcendent absolute, while at the same time suffering the meaninglessness of a flattened, material world—something philosopher Charles Taylor referred to as the ‘malaise of immanence’.
E 4:11 All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that they be put to death unless the king extends the gold scepter to them and spares their lives.
To present before the king without being summoned was a crime which carried the death penalty. With this very real threat looming over her head, in order to plead for the lives of her kinsmen, Esther did just that. But here’s where we often miss the key details. Esther presented before the king not in a display of power, but of profound vulnerability. It was in weakness that Esther’s true strength was found. It is said in ‘Esther Rabbah’, a kind of exposition of the Book of Esther in early Jewish Rabbinic literature, that during her three day fast Esther meditated on Psalm 22. Day one, ‘my God’, day two, ‘my God’, and day three, ‘why have you forsaken me?’. These are the same words Jesus cried out from the cross; weakness and strength. This was Esther’s moment of awakening. The light of something far greater than she could ever have imagined had shone through the thin veneer of the life and identity she had constructed for herself.
Like Esther, you and I have a similar choice to make. We can give in and simply become like the rest of the culture around us—we can go on tirelessly searching for meaning and identity in consumeristic practices, political persuasion, relationships, career, and reputation, but all we will be left with is a besetting emptiness. We will forever be haunted by glimmers of transcendence and purpose in the things that were never made to hold that kind of weight. Or we can awaken to who we truly are and step into something far greater than ourselves—something eternal. We can awaken to a renewed vision of life and belonging and purpose.
It’s not the easy option, but it is the way of life. It means choosing to resist the urge to turn and run or to hide behind walls in feigned hopes we can weather the storm of our secular exilic moment. It means choosing to live faithfully present lives, vulnerable yet bold. It means choosing the way of Esther, and ultimately the way of Jesus.
James Weeks is the Student Engagement Officer at Raymont Residential College in Brisbane, Australia. He previously was the College Principal at C3 Church Bridgeman Downs for five years. James is an incredible writer, academic with a Pastors heart.
recommended
An Introduction to the Old Testament
Esther part One
Job part Two