Rejecting Passivity and Risking Perishing

When Mordecai was informed of Esther’s deliberations, he told Hathach to make sure she understood she would not escape the edict. Even in the palace, there would be no exemptions. Mordecai was certain God’s people would be preserved; but if Esther faltered, she and her lineage would perish. In assessing Mordecai’s boldness, Prime contends,

We sometimes need to be extremely forthright in exhorting one another to do the right thing, just as Mordecai did with Esther. Our best friends are those who love us enough to be genuinely honest with us. . . . When relationships are good, reprimands can be given, even welcomed, and accepted in the spirit in which they are given. (Unspoken Lessons, 79)

Let’s consider Prime’s statement for a moment in light of our lives. Within your family and faith family, are there good relationships, are reproofs voiced in appropriate and loving ways, and are reprimands welcomed? The author of Proverbs tells us, “The wounds of a friend are trustworthy” (Prov 27:6).

One of the most transparent examples I have ever read of one Christian brother exhorting another to do the right thing and finding that exhortation received is in a blog post by Garrett Kell. In the piece Kell admits he was at one time a pastor enslaved to the sin of pornography. In preparing to launch a new church plant with one of his friends, Kell decided to reveal his sin and lengthy struggle through a letter to his planting partner. Kell records what happened next:

That trip to Jersey began an intervention that I believe saved my soul, my marriage, and my ministry. Carrie and I met Reid at a coffee shop and through tears he said, “I love you, brother, but after reading your letter, I don’t feel like we can move forward as partners. And to be honest, I don’t think you should be a pastor right now.” No one had ever gotten in my face like that—or at least I had never listened. Most people were willing to overlook my struggles because of my perceived giftedness or personality. But Reid didn’t care about any of that. He loved God, and he loved me. (“I Was a Pastor Hooked on Porn”)

To remain silent when those we care for are chained to sin is never loving. Kell would return home, confess his sin to the elders of his church, and then confess to the entire congregation, even repeating it for those who were not in attendance.

Kell did not run from his church, and they did not run him off. He notes that almost a year later, “many [members] began confessing their own hidden sins. Self-righteousness was expelled, and supernatural healing came for me and for the church family that remained” (ibid.). At the end of his blog post, Kell exhorts his readers,

You need someone in your life who knows you—who really knows you. Not who generally understands how you struggle, but who has a pulse on the state of your affections and sin struggles today. We all need someone along with whom we’re constantly confessing and repenting and trusting in Jesus. (Ibid.; emphasis in original)

In his grace God used the exhortation from a loving friend to move Kell not to do what was easy but to do what was holy and right. Esther had a similar relationship with Mordecai. You and I need that as well. Who needs your encouragement to obey the Lord, and who is encouraging you? I hope you are modeling how to give and to receive loving reproofs.

After hurricane Katrina, I had the opportunity to serve at a staging area at the New Orleans airport, helping families transition from rescue helicopters to inside the terminals. According to some of the evacuees’ stories, not all of them had been convinced help was going to arrive on time; for some caught in the floods, it did not. My wife and I asked one of the evacuees, who was seven months pregnant and had a two-year-old son, to stay with us until we could reconnect her with her family. She told us they had to cut their way through their roof to escape the rising waters. When she and her son were rescued, they left her daughter and mother standing on the roof. Though the pilots promised to return immediately to her roof, help had to be found elsewhere.

Regardless of Esther’s actions, Mordecai was certain God’s people would be preserved. If she faltered, it would be to her detriment, but the Jews would be delivered. From where and from whom would other help arise? Bush contends,

Given the facts of the story that the narrator has emphasized, such as the character of the king, the power of Haman’s position, the diabolical nature of his edict, and the irrevocability of Persian law, a plausible source for another human agency that could deliver the Jews is hard to imagine. (Ruth/Esther, 396)

Bush also rejects notions of “Jewish officials, a Jewish armed revolt, or the goodwill of the inhabitants of the empire” because they were “lamentably implausible” (ibid.).

So, does Mordecai mean “God” when he says the Jews will receive help from “another place” (4:14)? For those who believe Mordecai’s confidence is related to his conviction of divine providence, Bush contends, “There is simply nothing in the story even suggesting that the narrator characterizes Mordecai as a man of such firm faith and piety” (ibid.). While I agree with Bush that up to this point in the story there is little evidence to support a claim that Mordecai possesses unwavering faith, I do believe the author of Esther will provide glimmers of that hope in the passages to come and even in the final question of 4:14. Once again, though, we find ourselves wishing for specificity and clarity where none is provided. What is clear is that even if Esther does nothing, something will ultimately be done for the good of God’s people.

Either way, Esther herself is facing loss. In one scenario she risks losing her life. In another scenario she risks losing the blessings that come from doing the good she ought to do. I am always grieved when the Lord has to work around me instead of through me. Mordecai did not want this to be the case for Esther.

One of the most remembered and recognized phrases in the entire book of Esther is found at the end of verse 14. After evaluating the Jews’ problem and Esther’s placement, the lights of providence are possibly just beginning to gleam for Mordecai as he asserts that perhaps Esther’s being taken and then her becoming queen are not a random tragedy after all. Maybe the reason she has such a position is for a higher purpose. These musings reveal what we noted earlier in this book: Esther and Mordecai were not part of a well-organized coup to take power and remove Ahasuerus. No, in Mordecai’s ponderings of Esther’s position, there is much more the sound of Gomer Pyle’s “Gawl-lee” than of Sherlock Holmes’s snarky “Elementary, my dear Watson!” Mordecai may not have fully reached the answer of “4,” but he is at least beginning to frame the equation of “2 + 2” with this statement.

Mordecai’s point is clear enough. Obtaining a royal position is a matter requiring stewardship. Esther was entrusted with an opportunity and the responsibilities that came along with it.

Prime asserts, “We should all be asking, ‘What work has God especially for me to do because he has allowed me to be alive at this particular time?’” (Unspoken Lessons, 81). The Lord determines both when and where we live. As Paul says of God, “From one man he has made every nationality to live over the whole earth and has determined their appointed times and the boundaries of where they live” (Acts 17:26). There is not another time period in which you should have lived. The places where we are, the positions we hold, and the people by whom we are surrounded have been entrusted to us for the purpose of gospel advancement. God is no less intentional with our lives than he was with Esther’s and Mordecai’s. And just in case you need to be reminded, this “time” is our only time to make disciples, and the time decreases each day. May our lives be gripped with gospel urgency.

Esther 4:15-17

Like Mordecai and Esther, let us seek God’s power through prayer so that we will be resolved and faithful rather than resistant and fearful.

Where there initially had been reluctance, now in Esther there is resolve. The one who was given a command (4:8) would end up giving one of her own (4:16-17).

Several years ago I led a large group of teenagers on a mission trip to Germany. One of the requests of the missionaries with whom we were partnering was that our group spend time prayer walking through universities, apartment complexes, and city blocks. The students (and regrettably some of the other adults) were not really excited about this. In various forms they kept saying, “We came all this way to do something. We did not make the trip just to pray.” To their complaints, the missionary responded, “Prayer is doing something. No one else comes and prays in these places, and before we do anything else, we need to pray.” Pausing for prayer is not the same as pausing obedience for procrastination or passivity. As a matter of fact, prayer is never a bad first step.

But the text does not say anything about prayer. Frustrating, isn’t it? If there was ever a good place in Esther (and indeed we have seen several possibilities already) to make a few extra swipes with the pen to specifically tie actions with reliance on God, then this would be a great candidate. The author, however, refrained from doing so. Nevertheless, Prime contends that Esther’s statement “tells us what she did not trust in: she did not place her confidence in her own beauty, position, or eloquence. The mentioning of fasting indicates where Esther placed her trust” (Unspoken Lessons, 82). We would affirm that fasting reflects dependence on God. But could not her fasting have been an attempt to earn favor through asceticism? Sure, but from whom or what would she be earning that favor? Certainly not Ahasuerus, since he liked his women to have their cosmetics and food! In connecting prayer and fasting, Prime says,

Prayer is the principal purpose of fasting, in that fasting concentrates the mind and helps to detach it from current preoccupations. Fasting, therefore, is a way of abstaining from what may interfere with prayer. It is an expression of earnestness, and recognition of the seriousness of a situation, expressing either sorrow or repentance. (Ibid., 83)

Prime believes Esther, Mordecai, and all the Jews they could gather in Susa prayed along with their fasts, and I do as well.

When is the last time you fasted and prayed because you were seeking the Lord’s direction? When I was trying to discern whether I should pursue marriage with Tara, I fasted four days and prayed through Proverbs 3:5-6, taking one phrase per day as a focus for my prayers. David Mathis says, “Fasting has fallen on hard times—at least, it seems, among our overstuffed bellies in the American church.” He then admits, “I speak as one of the well-fed” (Habits of Grace, 117). Nevertheless, he contends that how we view fasting is important:

If we are awakened to see fasting for the joy it can bring, as a means of God’s grace to strengthen and sharpen godward affections, then we might find ourselves holding a powerful new tool for enriching our enjoyment of Jesus. (Ibid.)

In his book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, Don Whitney says many purposes for fasting can be found in Scripture. One of the purposes he lists is to strengthen prayer. He notes that Nehemiah (Neh 1:4), Daniel (Dan 9:3), Joel (Joel 2:12), and the church at Antioch (Acts 13:3) all fasted and prayed. He does offer two important cautions. First, he says,

The Bible does not teach that fasting is a kind of spiritual hunger strike that compels God to do our bidding. If we ask for something outside of God’s will, fasting does not cause him to reconsider. Fasting does not change God’s hearing so much as it changes our praying. (Spiritual Disciplines, 166)

Whitney’s second caution is that

we cannot use fasting as a way to impress God and earn His acceptance. We are made acceptable to God through the work of Christ Jesus, not our work. Fasting has no eternal benefit for us until we have come to God through repentance and faith. (Ibid., 165)

The fasting in this chapter of Esther certainly is a stark contrast to all of the feasts that are recorded. I hope fasting, however, is not unfamiliar to you but is a discipline you use often as you continue to grow in and pursue Christ. I have always appreciated the idea that the root of Christian fasting is the hunger of homesickness for God, [which means] we will do anything and go without anything if, by any means, we might protect ourselves from the deadening effects of innocent delights and preserve the sweet longings of our homesickness for God. (Piper, A Hunger for God, 15)

Like Esther we should fast to express that our confidence and trust are not in ourselves but in God. Sure, the possibility exists that Esther and the others only fasted and did not pray. But I would say what is possible in this case is not probable. In fasting we are able to say to God, “We hunger for you more than anything else. We can do without some things but not without you. As I fast, I express to you that I do not live by bread alone but desire to live on your words. And I need you to show me in your Word the way you would have me go.”

Through Mordecai’s exhortation, expectation, and evaluation, we have seen Esther shift away from self-preservation to be willing to sacrifice her life if necessary. With each opportunity the Lord gives us, our responsibility is obedience, not results. Neither Esther nor Mordecai knew how things would turn out. They both knew that Esther should intercede for her people and that it could cost her life. Abraham did not know how things would turn out with Isaac; he just knew what God was asking him to do (Gen 22). Paul did not know how everything would turn out; he just knew he was being compelled to go to Jerusalem (Acts 20:22-23). What is needed is not our full knowledge but our faithful obedience.

Since Christ is our great high priest, let us draw near to God in full confidence.

If left to our own resources with regard to holiness, we, like Mordecai, should don garments of mourning and never take them off. But as Isaiah says,

I rejoice greatly in the Lord, I exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation and wrapped me in a robe of righteousness, as a groom wears a turban and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. (Isa 61:10)

Esther tried to cover Mordecai, but God has succeeded in clothing us. He was able to do this by making “the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21).

That same one is the “one mediator between God and humanity, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2:5). Esther interceded on behalf of her people, but there is no greater mediator than Jesus, our great high priest (Heb 7:22-28). Becoming our mediator did not merely require the possibility of his death but the certainty of it. Keller notes, “Esther saved her people in two ways: identification and mediation. Does that remind you of anyone? Jesus didn’t say ‘If I perish, I perish,’ He said, ‘When I perish’” (“If I Perish, I Perish”).

Other than in Christ, there is nowhere we can hide from God’s wrath. Esther would not be safe in the citadel, and we are never safe in our sin. Christ is our only refuge. Once we are in Christ, we can draw near to God in full confidence that he welcomes us and desires our presence (Heb 10:19-22). Let us then never neglect an opportunity to draw near, for in his presence is “abundant joy” and at his right hand “are eternal pleasures” (Ps 16:11).

There has only been one perfect person God used in accomplishing his purposes. For the rest of his agenda, God uses imperfect people. He uses our daily and ordinary obedience to accomplish his extraordinary plan. Perhaps you feel you have concealed your faith too long or compromised with the world too much. Here is where Esther and Mordecai provide us a lot of hope. It is not just that we should see what they did right and do that, but we should also see all they did wrong and know it did not disqualify them from being used by God. The same is true for us.