The Bible Binge: Don't Call it Karma (Esther 9:20-32)

A taste of his own medicine

March of 1953, Moscow, Russia… there had been a party the night before. And the owner of the home didn’t show up for breakfast. That wasn’t unusual. The partygoers had been up to the wee hours of the morning watching movies, laughing, and draining their favorite beers. And on this morning, no one dared wake him. They were under strict orders not to bother the man of the house under any circumstances. And so they waited and waited, not disturbing him throughout the day for fear of upsetting “The Boss”. The late morning became afternoon became evening. Finally, late in the evening one trusted employee decided to take the daily mail to the owner’s room. What he found changed the course of history for an entire nation. There on the floor, dying from a stroke, most likely brought on from rat poison, lay his boss, a man who not coincidentally had poisoned hundreds of others. It was revealed later that the one who was the prime suspect in the death of the owner of the vacation home was himself the subject of a murderous plot by the owner who died that morning. Poisoned by the one who was supposed to get the poison. The one who died was Joseph Stalin, who was killed in much the same manner as he himself had killed millions of others. The tables had been turned. A taste of his own medicine. A reversal of fortune.

The turning of the tables is a familiar plot device for anyone who is a fan of James Bond or Indiana Jones. The evil villain is done in by an ironic twist of fate, many times at his own hand. The turning of the tables turned Wile E. Coyote into a Saturday morning favorite. And there’s an instance of this in our Bible Binge lesson this morning. This morning we are in Esther as we make our way from Genesis to Revelation in 14 months. And as we consider Esther, this ironic twist is at the heart and soul of the entire story.

We’re not going to go over all of the details of Esther’s story. I encourage you to follow along in your Bible Binge daily Bible readings. The story of Esther takes place a little more than 100 years after Babylon destroyed Jerusalem. Persia is now the world power. Xerxes is the ruler of the known world at the time. Nehemiah and Ezra haven’t yet begun rebuilding Jerusalem and the temple. Esther, a Jewish woman, through a series of events, becomes queen to Xerxes. However, Esther’s Jewishness is kept a secret, which then becomes a major part of the story. The big bad in the story of Esther is a guy named Haman. He does not like the Jews. He plots to wipe out the Jews with a genocidal scheme, which is uncovered and told to Esther. Esther, at the risk of her life, does a big reveal party… only she’s not revealing the gender of a baby… she’s revealing to Xerxes the genocidal plans of Haman to wipe out the Jews. When Haman is found out, he is hanged on the very gallows that he had built for the Jews. Haman and his cronies are all executed, and the people of Israel, the Jews, are saved through the heroic efforts of Esther and her family.

That is the story of Esther in a nutshell. There are a lot of things about the book of Esther that seem strange to us. Esther put her life on the line at the reveal party because women, even the queen, were not allowed to approach the king unannounced. If the king didn’t want to see the queen, she could lose her life. Edicts made by the Persian king couldn’t be revoked. If we don’t like a law, we either vote it off the books, or change it. The Jews were saved from a bad edict by the king making a new edict giving them power over their enemies. Haman decides what day to eradicate the Jews using lots, or what we would consider, an ancient pair of dice. It all seems weird to us.

If we’re to understand the story of Esther as it is revealed to us in the Bible, there are some things to keep in mind.

The book of Esther explains Purim.

First, the book of Esther explains the Jewish festival of Purim. This is part of our passage that we read today:

Esther 9:21–22 Mordecai (Esther’s uncle) ordered the Jews to celebrate the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the month of Adar every year because during those days the Jews gained relief from their enemies.

When Jewish children ask mom and dad “why are we celebrating this festival of Purim?”, mom and dad and the rest of the community would get out the scroll of Esther and read the story again. “We celebrate because a big bad guy threw some dice and decided it would be on this date we would all be wiped out, and it didn’t happen because of Esther.” Jews still read Esther every year during Purim, which happens during our month of March.

That’s the most basic reason that Esther was written. However, there is more going on in Esther, and in fact, there’s more going on in this idea of Purim than simply celebrating an historic event.

The book of Esther highlights the tables being turned on the serpent.

The writer of Esther, if it was Mordecai, wants us to see the entire story in the bigger picture. Because when he gets to chapter 9, where he’s wrapping up the explanation of all the things that happened in those 3 or 4 years with Esther, he is using language that pushes us beyond the story of Esther. About Haman, the big bad, the writer says this:

Esther 9:24–25 Haman, the enemy of all the Jews, plotted against the Jews to destroy them. He cast the pur—that is, the lot—to crush and destroy them. But when the matter was brought before the king, he commanded by letter that the evil plan Haman had devised against the Jews return on his own head.”

Seems like a simple and straightforward summary for celebrating Purim, until you look a little closer:

Haman plotted to CRUSH AND DESTROY. Instead, it RETURNED ON HIS OWN HEAD.

If you’re listening to this being read in the synagogue your ears should perk up. This language is not an accident. It’s why we read Genesis 3:15 earlier. The entire Old Testament story is about the unfolding drama of the war between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. In God’s promise, he promises that some day the serpent’s head would be crushed. The writer of Esther wants us to see that the serpent is at it again in the person of Haman. The serpent time and again is trying to wipe out the Jews with genocide and murder… with Abel, famine with Jacob and his sons, then in Egypt through Pharaoh, in the desert through Saul trying to kill David, time and again hoping to eradicate the line of the Messiah. And time and again, God rescues his line and his people from the serpent. And in this story, Haman’s head is crushed.

It’s important to say one thing about Haman, because this comes up from time to time as you hear this story in our pop evangelicalism. Haman got his. Haman got what was coming to him. This was divine Karma. That’s the running line, but that’s not the way the Bible talks about judgment. This is not Karma. Don’t call this Karma. God doesn’t operate that way. There is irony here. It is ironic that Haman dies on his own gallows.

Irony is not karma. Irony is employed by God’s justice.

This is God’s justice. Haman, in an act that was pure evil, couched the entire genocidal idea as chance… as if it was the fate determining the eradication of the Jews. That’s evil. But chance it is not. God does not operate using karma. Karma is not a Christian idea. I emphasize this because every so often, you’ll hear someone quote that verse from Galatians… whatever a man sows, he reaps… as if that is the Christian version of karma. It’s not. In fact, that’s taking that passage out of context.

God renders justice… but at the same time, there is always grace. The reality is we are constantly not reaping what we sow. God, in his grand orchestration of all things, rendered judgment on Haman and the evil here. And in God’s justice, the Jews were given grace and salvation.

The book of Esther, then, is another story in the grand storyline of the drama of redemption of God intentionally saving his people through a mediator, and this time it is Esther. It’s important to note that this story of salvation

Which leads to this:

The book of Esther's main theme is the salvation of God’s people (again).

Haman gets the gallows. The Jews get blessing. Here is how the grand reversal in Esther is described for the Jews:

Esther 9:22 During those days the Jews gained relief from their enemies. That was the month when their sorrow was turned into rejoicing and their mourning into a holiday. They were to be days of feasting, rejoicing, and of sending gifts to one another and to the poor.

Again this language is not an accident.

Sorrow to rejoicing

Mourning to a holiday

That is salvation language. This festival of Purim is to be days of feasting, rejoicing, and of sending gifts to one another and to the poor. The feasting, rejoicing, and sending creates images of the Garden of Eden and all things plentiful. You see, salvation isn’t simply salvation from judgment. Yes, the Jews were spared death. But that’s only half the story. God rendered judgment on Haman so that the Jews would move from sorrow to rejoicing and from mourning to a holiday. It is because judgment has provided salvation that there is then feasting and sending gifts. Being saved from the gallows is a blessing to be sure… but God wants so much more for his people… he wants singing and dancing and rejoicing and feasting and abundance of generosity.

And of course, you know where this is going..

The book of Esther is a picture of who Jesus is FOR US.

The next time someone asks you what the book of Esther is about, just say, yeah… that’s Jesus saving his people again. Just like the Red Sea. Just like Goliath. In Esther, the salvation of God’s people happens through a mediator who advocates on behalf of a people at the risk of death. The writer here in chapter 9 makes sure that we see that the salvation of the Jews is done by "Esther's bringing the matter before the king" and "by Esther's command"... Esther is the savior in this story. Like Joseph, an unknown Jew in a Gentile court, saving God's people and by extension, his messianic line. That's not Karma, that's grace.

Ultimately, this turn of the tables happens at the cross... where Jesus himself dies on the gallows prepared for another (us). Our Salvation goes and hangs on the gallows for us. And there is no saving him. Further, the serpent prepares the gallows for Jesus, and Jesus indeed dies on those gallows, but what the serpent does not know is that those gallows are his head-crushing defeat.

We read earlier the passage from the cross. 3 times Jesus is tempted on the cross… he saved others he can’t save yourself. If you really are THE GUY, come down from the cross and save yourself. There is no saving Jesus. In the process, Jesus is turning the tables on the serpent, just like the tables were turned on Haman. The serpent is striking his heal. The serpent, the world, is killing Jesus. Jesus doesn't save himself... and in not saving himself from the gallows, he saves his people and crushes the serpent. As Jesus is killed, Jesus is saving us. That is not Karma. That is justice for the serpent. That is grace and life and salvation for us.

This grace totally undermines the idea of karma.. and too often, Karma bleeds into the ways we think about justice in our Christian lives. Are we looking for vindication in all of the wrong places? Are we looking to turn the tables on those we don’t like… never mind if they aren’t necessarily God’s enemies? Are we always looking to gain the upper hand, hoping to turn the tables ourselves? Even if we were to never say it… do we as a people get a smug satisfaction when someone we don’t like “gets theirs”? Worse, do we wring our hands in anxiousness wondering why those who hate God and oppose us and make life miserable because we are Christians and they are *not* “getting theirs”?

Esther 9 is what we need to hear. And believe all over again. Have we ever stopped to think that we need grace as much as the person we think should get theirs? Do we desire grace for them? We need to come to the pages of Esther 9. Even as life seems like it will throw us to the gallows, let us come gaze at the One who died on the gallows on our behalf and on behalf of those we think should get what’s coming to them. Jesus died for them. Jesus loves them. There will be justice. Even as we long for vindication, let us come gaze at the one who already crushed the serpent… And will some day fully and completely turn the tables on his enemies and exalt and vindicate his people. Jesus did not save himself that day because He wanted to turn your sorrow and your mourning into rejoicing and holiday and feasting. That’s how much he loves you. That’s his grace, FOR YOU.

Let’s pray.

The Table

Sorrow into dancing. Mourning into a holiday. Feasting. Giving gifts. Abundance. It’s all here. This is where the Tables are turned for you. Jesus, the great Shepherd, has prepared this Table for us in the presence of enemies… evil, sin, death, and the devil… this Table is their retribution… it is where we get forgiveness instead of the gallows, because Jesus, the One who provides us with himself has gone to the gallows for us. And now we get his body and his blood for our life, salvation , and forgiveness. What a feast!

Benediction

Numbers 6:24–26

May the Lord bless you and protect you;

may the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;

may the Lord look with favor on you and give you peace.