Young Woman and the Sea

Welcome

Alright, we’ll let’s go ahead and get started!

Introduction

Young Woman and the Sea - follows the story of Trudy Ederle, the first woman to swim the English Channel, which is an incredible accomplishment. And just so we’re tracking with the details here - at its shortest point, the English Channel is about 21 miles wide on the Straights of Dover.

Just to put this in perspective...in your average size pool...it would take about 70 laps...that’s down and back again...to swim a mile.

21 miles in the pool would be 1470 laps...and when I asked my google AI chat bot how long this would take someone who isn’t trained, it just said, “Don’t do it, it’s impossible.” That said, in a pool, with no water current weather conditions, it would take you about 21 hours.

Trudy did this in 14 hours 31 minutes.

And as the movie makes clear, she was not only the fastest woman to do this...at this point, she was the only woman...and her time was the fastest time in men’s and women’s categories.

Which is one of the driving points of Young Woman and the Sea; that because of Trudy’s accomplishments, she legitimized women’s swimming and more than that, women’s athletics more than any other person in her time.

The thing is, a biopic like Young Woman and the Sea is trying to leave you with a very specific impression about the main character. More often than not, the film maker is not just trying to impress you with a compelling story, they are trying to get you to realize that you to can be like character!

In this movie, the big idea is: be like Trudy! You can do hard things. It’s not an overly complicated message.

Now, I have been spending a good deal of time thinking about what to do with this kind of story for this series. And the more I was thinking about it, I kept coming back to another biopic of sorts - a story we find embedded in the Old Testament that is actually intended to have the same affect on us as we read and retell this story. And I think we’ll find, in so many ways, Trudy’s story parallels the story of another woman in the Old Testament: a woman who was confronted with one of the most important and revealing questions that we can be asked…and just like with Young woman and the Sea, the point of this story is be like her.

So if you have a bible with you, open with me to the Old Testament book of Esther.

I’ll pray, and then we’ll get started.

PRAY

Move 1: Esther’s Story

Alright, let’s go ahead and get started.

Now, we’re not going to be able to talk about the whole story of Esther - we’re really just going to focus in on what I think is the climactic moment here.

But just so you have some context, let me give you a bit of background.

Setting

The events of the book take place right around 480 B.C. - and we have pretty solid dating because this deals with the Ancient Persian empire - and empire known for its meticulous recording keeping.

King Xerxes’ empire stretched over India through Ethiopia. And much of this story takes place in modern day Iran, in the city of Susa, the capital of the Empire at the time.

Biblical Setting

Now if you were to follow the storyline of the Old Testament, the events of this book take place after the Exile. In fact, much of the Old Testament is telling the story of the people of Israel who have rebelled against God. The books of 1st and 2nd Kings - 1st and 2nd Chronicles talk about this - that God has called them to live one way and they are choosing to live their own way. The prophets like Isaiah, Jonah, Micah and others tell the people to repent - to return back to following the Lord. They don’t and so they are taken into Exile, removed from the land of Israel and scattered among the nations. Esther’s story takes place after the Israelites have been given permission to by the Persians - the global superpower at the time - to return back home.

Curious Features of Esther

Now…

One of the interesting features of this story is that it’s the only book of the Bible in which God is not mentioned. Which is odd, right? Like maybe that should be prerequisite for a book being in the Bible? Famously, the Protestant Reformer Martin Luther had some serious reservations about considering Esther part of the Bible.

But actually, when you read through the story, what you see over and over again is that God is absolutely involved in every detail of what happens here - His fingerprints are all over Esther’s story - which we’ll get to in a moment.

But the other thing I find so fascinating about this book is the way it’s been used by God’s people since it was written.

What you see at the end of Esther’s story is that it actually becomes the basis for one of the biblical feasts, still celebrated today in Jewish communities called Purim. And the way this has worked is that every year, families gather together and retell Esther’s story in dramatic fashion, sometimes acted out. And in a lot of ways, this is done with the same point of Biopics like Young Woman and the Sea - the point is to be like Esther!

Esther’s Story

So let’s get to her story!

In chapter one, we meet the King.

Look with me at Esther 1:1-4

Esther 1:1–4 ESV

Now in the days of Ahasuerus, the Ahasuerus who reigned from India to Ethiopia over 127 provinces, in those days when King Ahasuerus sat on his royal throne in Susa, the citadel, in the third year of his reign he gave a feast for all his officials and servants. The army of Persia and Media and the nobles and governors of the provinces were before him, while he showed the riches of his royal glory and the splendor and pomp of his greatness for many days, 180 days.

The king is unbelievably wealthy!

He’s got more money and more land and more power than we could possibly imagine.

And he’s looking for a queen.

So there is a search through the kingdom for eligible single ladies who are brought to basically compete for the King’s attention.

Think the Bachelor…and if you don’t know that show - you’re holier than every else who does.

Esther lives in the capital and we’re told in chapter 2,

Esther 2:15–17 ESV

“…Esther was winning favor in the eyes of all who saw her. And…the king loved Esther more than all the women, and she won grace and favor in his sight more than all the young women, so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen...”

Now, there’s a a problem. Because at the same time Esther is being crowned as queen of Persia, the rest of her people, the Jews living in Persia are being considered a problem by the royal officials.

One of them, a man named Haman, comes to the king and says,

Esther 3:8–9 ESV

“There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king’s laws, so that it is not to the king’s profit to tolerate them. If it please the king, let it be decreed that they be destroyed…

And the King agrees. Not realizing that this proclamation would soon apply to his new wife.

Pause

And I think we have to acknowledge for a moment that it’s hard to capture the intensity of this when we have to skim over the story like this…I mean, we’re talking about something that happened 2,500 years ago…we’re a little removed from drama. But we have to imagine a holocaust situation about to play out…and call it what you want…miraculous…chance…luck… Esther, a Jewish woman now sits in high favor with the one person who can stop all this from happening - and even if she doesn’t know exactly what to do…

One of her relatives, Mordecai recognizes this and begins to plead with her…to see that she is in position to actually do something…and that if she doesn’t, all of her people…not just her family, but every Jewish person in the kingdom will be ruthlessly slaughtered...their homes and communities mercilessly pillaged. There is the horrific outcome on the horizon.

And there is a back and forth between Esther as she tries to explain to her uncle… “Look, I didn’t ask for this…it’s not like I can waltz on in for a little chat with king.

She says it this way:

Esther 4:11 ESV

“All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—to be put to death!”

And she lets him know that the King hasn’t asked to see her in a month.

And you read through the story, you can almost hear the exacerbation in Esther’s voice as she’s trying to let him know that there’s nothing she can…it’s not like she’s saying “No.” Because it’s an inconvenience to her…or that she’s got better things to do…

But it’s in the back and forth between Mordecai and Esther, that I think we find the most profound, thought provoking and phenomenally important question Esther is asked - and in a lot of ways, it’s the question we are asked as we follow this story…the answer to which will fundamentally change the way we view all of life and the word around us.

Mordecai’s response is so profound. Look with me at v. 13.

Esther 4:13–14 ESV

Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. But who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

Move 2: “For Such a Time as This”

What a question, right?

It’s this moment when Mordecai, with just a few words, is able to pierce through the fog of chaos of everything else that’s going on…and land a question, that as Esther reflects on it…radically changes the course of not just her life…but the lives of all her people….the hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children.

In a sense, Mordecai says, “Esther, look at your life…why do you think you’re here in the first place?

Why do you think, of all the places your family could have settled…they came to Susa, the Capital? Why do you think they stayed…why do you think, of all the woman to be brought before the king…he would choose you? Unknowingly making a queen someone from the very people he would soon demand eradicated?

Of all the variables of life over which you are radically out of control and had absolutely no say or power to sway…how do you think it came to be that you just happened to be right here, right now?

Could it be for such…a time…as this.

And it’s this powerfully probing question from her uncle that propels Esther forward.

But it’s this moment in time - this line of questions from Mordecai - that I have been gripped by…not just over the last few weeks…but for the last 11 years of my life…more on that in a moment.

You see, this question is the reason this story has been remembered…rehearsed over and over again for generations…

Because it’s an invitation extended to all of us as we think about our own lives: perhaps you are here…perhaps I am here…right now…for such a time as this.

And I don’t mean that in some kind of cheesy call to a grand adventure…but I mean this as a new way to look at your life and the details of your life: past, present, and future.

It’s an invitation to see that your life is about far more than chance, luck, happenstance and coincidence, but that we are actually caught up in story that is far bigger than just our own lives.

After all, a question like this makes a massive assumption about life itself, doesn’t it? To say that maybe here you’re here for such a time as this is at the same time to say that there is meaning and purpose behind what is happening…more than that there is a God who is orchestrating that meaning and purpose.

There’s a word to describe this kind of meaning and purpose that Mordecai is hinting at in Esther’s story.

It’s not really a word we use too often today - but I think it’s a beautiful word. Now, it’s not a word that shows up in the Bible, but it describes a bunch of qualities about God that do.

The word is: Providence.

I love how one theologian explained this:

“The providence of God means the continuing action of God in preserving his creation and guiding it toward his intended purposes”

And in some ways, you can think of it like this: providence is bit like what my kids experienced when they were learning to walk.

All along the way, my wife and I are there, helping them learn to take steps…we’re moving things out of the way that they don’t even recognize as dangerous - supporting them as they get a little better at it… in that process, we are preserving and guiding them to the intended purpose of walking.

And in a lot of ways, this is how God’s providence works with us…After all, this is what God is doing all along in the Esther’s story! He has been involved with every interaction she has - slowly arranging the details of her life - most often in unseen ways that - ways that she was completely unaware of - in order that he might be guiding her story to the purpose He has for her and His people!

And God’s providence is not just at work in Esther’s life, it’s at work in your lives. As He is at work in the details of what happening, preserving and guiding.

And not just the good parts of your life, but in God’s providence, He is at work even through the hardest seasons we walk through in this life. In fact, this one of the things that I love about the story of Esther, because it so clearly puts on display God’s hidden hand of providence especially in our suffering.

Let’s take off the rose colored lens for a moment. So much of what’s happened to Esther is absolutely tragic…this is nothing like a fairy tale story, because really nothing about how her life has been easy. We know she’s raised by her uncle, because her parents are dead. She’s living as a refugee in the capital city - a refugee from a people group that is increasingly hated by the citizens of Persia…she is “selected” to come before a ruthless king who is willing to slaughter countless innocent men, women, and children…and while he can certainly stop it from happening, he only has to stop something that he’s first started! Judged only by her appearance, her lot in life seems to be as property and eye candy for an egoistical, evil tyrant,..and the best idea on the table right now is that she’s just supposed to walk on over for a little chat about his domestic policy.

The point is, Esther’s life is not the kind of life that anyone wants. This is not a fairy tale.

And YET…it is precisely in Esther’s life - with all of what’s happened to her…with all of what she’s had to endure and push through…that Mordecai wisely makes his appeal to God’s providence and suggest, “Maybe all of that…I’m not saying it doesn’t matter…that’s it’s not a big deal or that you just shouldn’t worry about it…but maybe all of that…is about something else...maybe in all of that, God is up to something else.” And after all that…could it be…you are here…right now…in this place…in this moment…for such a time as this?

And see, this is not just a conversation between two people 2,500 years ago. Mordecai, in inviting Esther to consider this a “for such a time as this” moment, makes the same invitation to us.

That we look at our own lives…the details…the good, the bad, the ugly, the hidden…and says to us…in light of all of this…could it be…that you are here…for such a time as this?

Friends, it’s an invitation to see life - all of it - through a very different lens than what the rest of the world offers us…through the often mysterious lens of God’s providence…guiding and preserving us towards His intended purpose…one that we may or may not understand.

Now, let me be clear…God’s providence does not make your life easy or painless…some of you know that all too well.

But the power of God’s providence…trusting God’s providence - his guiding and preserving hand over your life to His intended purpose…has been for countless followers of Jesus and can be for you…a ever replenished well of hope and resilience through all of what we encounter.

Years, later, in the New Testament, Paul would round out this picture saying, (Romans 8:28)

Romans 8:28 ESV

28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

This becomes our refrain. This becomes what re remind ourselves over and over again.

And you see, when we begin to have this as our lens, just like for Esther, it begins to radically alter not just how we view the world, but how we engage the world around us…how we engage the spaces God has placed us in.

Story of Courtney and I going to Russia - but maybe were in that season in Chicago, in our church, for such a time as this…it’s an opportunity to rethink how we are engaged in the local church.

Eventually we started to recognize that perhaps God had brought to where we were for such a time as this. And I think this is the same question we need to ask ourselves today: perhaps I am here for such a time as this…perhaps there is a greater way providentially bringing you to this season for something greater!

Next step: -Serving… -Giving…

Gospel: