Simon Bowkett's Podcast

Esther 5:1-14

January 13, 2023 Simon Bowkett
Simon Bowkett's Podcast
Esther 5:1-14
Show Notes Transcript

•          Introduction

Don’t you just love it when somebody who has been quiet and compliant and just hanging out in the background steps up and speaks out and shows what total gold they’re made of?

Today Queen Esther is that person in this story.

 Up until now the big characters in this story have been Mordecai the Jew, Xerxes the Persian and Haman the Agagite.

·       Haman’s been revealed as an empty braggart, addicted to the applause his position brought him.

·       Xerxes has been revealed as a thorough-going puppet despot, apparently in control but manipulated by his courtiers.

·       And even Mordecai the Jew now fades into the story’s background, as Esther boldly and faithfully acts on her new resolution.

What’s happened is that Esther’s people are now seriously threatened with horrible Haman’s decree of genocide, Esther resolves in 4:15-16:

‘Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: 16 “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”

There to my mind is the turning point in the story … the human element that turns back the tide in Persian politics and enables the deliverance of God’s people.

When the people of God stick their courage to the wall, God turns the tide of this world’s heinous and horrible hostility.

         •        1. Esther loves her God and His people, vv. 1-8

Now if I ask you if you love Jesus, just what are you going to answer?

The conventional answer in our era as to whether a compromised Queen like this Queen Esther loves Jesus is going to be fairly clear ‘No’.

She certainly hasn’t kept kosher.

She certainly hasn’t obeyed what God’s law says about marriage!

There’s not enough of God’s faithfulness about her for even her fellow inhabitants of King Xerxes’ harem to have a clue that her heritage is Jewish.

But Esther proves that she loves both her God and her people.

How’s that?

(She certainly hasn’t shown it until now!)

Well, do you remember what happened between the Lord and Peter in John 21:15-19

 

““Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?”

 

“Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.”

 

Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”

 

16 Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

 

He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.”

 

Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.”

 

17 The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?”

 

Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.”

 

Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. 18 Very truly I tell you, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” 19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”

Peter hadn’t proved so faithful when the chips were down and hadn’t dignified his words with his conduct.

We know he’d only recently denied His Saviour three times.

So here it comes, phrased in varying ways the question as to whether Peter actually did love Jesus.

Three times ‘yes’ … but in response each and every time the Lord comes straight back at Peter’s answer saying ‘feed my lambs’ … or something similar.

Then after the final time of asking, John comes up with an explanation of what it would cost Peter to do so: “Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”” (John 21:19)

It’s really not the protestations of faith that matter.

It’s whether we’ll actually follow a crucified Saviour in our own experience of our own life and death, ready to go where He leads us … to live or to die simply for doing so, in a life given up to His service.

Neither Peter nor Esther got it all right.

‘Far from it’ would be the summary for both of them on that one.

But when it came to commitment to God shown to His people, both of them have the courage born of faith.

Here’s the thing …


• Love for God will stick its neck out in a harsh, and truly God-hostile world, v. 1

Esther 5:1 “’On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the palace, in front of the king’s hall. The king was sitting on his royal throne in the hall, facing the entrance.”

What is going on here then?

i)               On the third day

ii)              Esther put on her royal robes, and …

iii)             Entered the Red Zone


•The woman who loves her God has the friend that she needs, vv. 2-3

If God is dead - Esther’s really in trouble now.

We’ve got archaeology that depicts the King of Persia seated on his throne like this and - chillingly - behind his throne ready and waiting stands a big guy wielding the sword to execute people with.

And there stands Esther with only the King between her and the big guy with the sword.

Or is that not quite the whole truth?

Now, in the Old Testament does not promise to preserve the life of His person … only that of His people.

Sometimes His soldiers are not preserved in this life through the conflicts they are called to engage in.

The threat to God’s cause and people is covered.

But the earthly life of the individual may not be so thoroughly underwritten.

If you understand the culture and the brutality of the Persian culture of that time, and so long as you haven’t heard this story already, the tension by this point will be spine tingling.

Remember, Esther fears that she has fallen from favour with the king … back in 4:11 Esther sent a message to Mordecai to say:

““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. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.”

That doesn’t sound terribly confidence-building!

But there stands Esther in the Red Zone, uninvited, in Xerxes’ presence.

What’s going to happen?

“When he saw Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out to her the gold sceptre that was in his hand. So Esther approached and touched the tip of the sceptre.”

The Queen has a Friend in Heaven and her life is rather mercifully spared.

More than that.

Contrary to expectation, the King’s heart is tender to her needs …


•The heart of the tyrant is opened, vv. 3 & 6

v. 3 Then the king asked, “What is it, Queen Esther? What is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be given you.””

The Queen invites the King and her enemy Haman to a feast, and it is at that feast as they start drinking Xerxes asks again:

V. 6 “As they were drinking wine, the king again asked Esther, “Now what is your petition? It will be given you. And what is your request? Even up to half the kingdom, it will be granted.”

Now, that ‘up to half my Kingdom’ thing is apparently a standard expression which meant the King was minded to be generous, but wasn’t to be taken totally literally.

It sounds the same as the sort of expression Herod uses when Salome dances for Herod and asks for John the Baptist’s head.

Here it seems as if Xerxes is saying the one come dressed as the Queen is acknowledged to be Queen and it’s almost as if her royal husband is saying that far from her having fallen from favour, it remains true that SHE is the Queen and  ‘what’s yours is mine’.

In any event, whatever the case, the heart of this tyrant Xerxes has been thoroughly opened.


•The mystery of all of these banquets, vv. 5 & 8

This is huge.

Herodotus comments on the way the Persians did politics as they drank as well as feasted.

That seems to be borne out by the way the King opens negotiations as they get to the drinking.

And it is Esther who has set up the drinking bout.

So … the King has invited Esther to say what she wants up to half the Kingdom, and she sets up a situation where she actually gets to do proper politics.

It’s as if she’s pressing Xerxes make good on his offer, she’s setting up a situation appropriate not to asking for a new kitchen or a flash little chariot to get her about town, but to letting her in on the serious business of politics.

Well of course!

That is exactly the sort of thing she’s trying to achieve, she wants to bring down the most powerful man in the land (Haman the Royal favourite) and turn back the legally binding law that’s been passed to bring about the total genocide of God’s people.

And it’s not minor politics she’s set her heart on, but the sort that’s going to need at least one subsequent banquet!

In the interlude between the first and second banquets, we get a totally revealing insight into the difference between Esther’s heart and Haman’s.

•        2. Haman loves himself, vv. 9-13

Esther has dramatically not loved her own life so much as to shrink from death, but just placed her life in God’s hands and did it for the sake of God’s cause and God’s people.

But Haman is a man who loves himself.


•The man who loves himself celebrates with sycophants, vv. 10b-12

We can see that from vv. 10b-12 where Haman summons his fan club to brag and boast in front of them in order to feel better about himself.

His action is the opposite of what we’re seeing in this chapter from Esther.

Vv. 10b-12 “Calling together his friends and Zeresh, his wife, 11 Haman boasted to them about his vast wealth, his many sons, and all the ways the king had honored him and how he had elevated him above the other nobles and officials.”

And then it starts to get incredibly ironic …

 12 “And that’s not all,” Haman added. “I’m the only person Queen Esther invited to accompany the king to the banquet she gave. And she has invited me along with the king tomorrow.”

Esther has become a woman who is committed to serving her God and His people. 

Haman, quite simply, serves himself.

And as is typical of men of his sort, he has a very large ego on the surface, which is an incredibly fragile one beneath the surface!

Check out v. 13 …


•The man who loves himself hates the man who does not applaud him, v. 13 

“But all this gives me no satisfaction as long as I see that Jew Mordecai sitting at the king’s gate.”

Mordecai refused to sign up to Haman’s personal fan club.

Yes, it was passive resistance.

But Haman knew what it was about, and he hated it.

His huge ego was incredibly fragile, and threatened by one far less favoured official whose influence was next to nothing, when compared to his own.

It’s just the consistent trans-generational hatred of the Agagites, the enmity of evil against God and His people … God’s people who worship Almighty God and not fragile and human megalomaniacs.

They can NOT be expected to do anything but hate the people who honour their God first and therefore don’t break out in loud applause for mere human megalomaniacs.


•The man who loves himself hears his own echo (and not the voice of true wisdom), v. 14

He hates the man who does not applaud him, but listens to his own echo from his personal fan club.

V. 14 “His wife Zeresh and all his friends said to him, “Have a pole set up, reaching to a height of fifty cubits, and ask the king in the morning to have Mordecai impaled on it. 

Then go with the king to the banquet and enjoy yourself.” 

This suggestion delighted Haman, and he had the pole set up.”

Such people do not reckon with God.

 

•        Conclusion

So what’s going on, in conclusion, in this passage?

At the root of the change of heart in Esther … ‘I will go to the King and if I perish, I perish’ … lies the commitment to follow through on her new resolution.

She resolved to live or to die, but serve God in any case.

Haman was GOING to die, but he would only serve himself actually … regardless.

He died for things that really weren’t worth anything like dying for.

Esther put her life fully on the line … not fully understanding what Christians came later to see that the man (the woman) is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he never can lose.

I’m paraphrasing the words written by Jim Elliot, an American Christian missionary and one of five people killed during Operation Auca, an attempt to evangelise the Huaorani people of Ecuador on January 8th. 1957 … an anniversary that was marked on Sunday last week.

He was 28 years old.

And then his wife and the wives of the other guys who died on the Curry River in Ecuador that day took their own lives in their hands and then placed them in God’s hands to visit the self-same tribe themselves and share the gospel with them.

So now, friends, let’s ask the question: do we love Jesus?

Esther knew so much less about the God of the Covenant than we know now with the benefit of knowing all about Jesus.

But even so she knew that what God wanted was to know that Esther would put her life where her mouth was.

She never saw the dying love of Jesus, costly sacrificed for our very unworthy sakes.

But even Esther not only resolved to serve the Lord even if it meant she perished, but to put herself into the Red Zone for the sake of God’s cause and His people … now being threatened by the enemies of God.

“But we do see Jesus, who was made lower than the angels for a little while, now crowned with glory and honour because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

Hebrews 2:9

The question has to be how seeing Him and seeing all that has impacted what we are living to be loving.

That’s the issue that separated Esther and Haman.

And it’s the issue that separates Jesus’ people to this day.

May His love so revolutionise our lives that our gratitude and service know no measure.

Because the glorious outcome of that grace-fed commitment to His cause and His people is the turning of the triumph of evil to its cofounding.