Great Women of the Bible - Esther 1

Great Women of the Bible Week 4

Esther 1

Esther 4:13-17

LES Lekoven - MCH

Series Slide

Good morning and welcome to worship today on this Pentecost Sunday!  It is a joy to worship together on the birthday of the church.  This is the day that the Disciples experienced the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon them as they left the Upper Room and proclaimed the gospel… and 3000 people gave their lives to Christ. We find it all in Acts 2, and it was as though Peter was put in place for just such a time as that. 

On Pentecost, I will often preach on Acts 2 and Peter’s sermon, but not today.  Today, we are knee deep in our Great Women of the Bible sermon series.

We’ve seen the story of Abigail, Deborah and Jael, and Ruth. In the future we will be looking at the Mary’s and Junia and a few others!

But, today we are looking at Esther… actually we will be looking at Esther and Mordecai for the next two weeks, the first half of the book this week and the second half next week.   There was just so much material, I couldn’t fit it all into 1 week.

So, turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Esther as we cover the first half.  But before we do, let us pray…

[Prayer]

Sermon Slide

As the father of a daughter… I know what it means to be a princess.  Any of you understand what I mean?  Whether it’s Jasmine, Ariel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Belle, Mulan, Pocahontas, or Rapunzel, it seems every girl dreams of being a princess.  Here’s the thing about these Disney Princess stories though… they are all the same. Right?  I know, one’s in Asia and the other is under the sea.  One’s native American and the other is Pacific Islander… but it’s still the same story.

A girl is in trouble… maybe she’s with an evil stepmom… or she’s trapped in a castle… or she’s living with 7 short men… which is questionable to start with… but you get the point.  Often it’s a ‘rags to riches’ story and the girl is swept off her feet by the prince, or the king, or whoever.  It seems to be every little girls dream to be a princess and the prince to come riding in to rescue her and they ride off into the sunset on his majestic white horse.

Well, that is the story of Queen Esther.  But to understand it fully, we need to go back to before there was a Queen Esther.

Let me pause… when a new series about an epic saga comes out on TV, early in the series there’s this boring episode that is almost all character development.  Well, I hope that’s not what this is… but I do want you to have the history of what happened that led to the story of Queen Esther.

So, we are going to start with Daniel and the Babylonian Exile… you remember Daniel in the Lion’s Den and the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace.  

During the time of Daniel, around 570 BC, Nebuchadnezzar had conquered the final holdouts of the Israelites and exiled the leaders to Babylon. After Nebuchadnezzars death in 562, his son, then his grandson, and then his great-grandson, all led the Neo-Babylonian empire.  We get to King Nabonius and find that he had some mental health crisis and exiled himself, so, Belshazzar ruled in his place.  During Belshazar's rule, an interesting thing happened that we find in Daniel 5, it’s where we get the expression, “The Handwriting is on the wall.” 

So, Belshazzar threw a big party and decided to use the gold and silver from the Jewish Temple for the merriment of he and his guests.  As they drank wine from the goblets of the Temple, they praised other gods and suddenly a mysterious floating hand appeared and wrote a message on the wall. No one could read the mysterious writing until they brought Daniel in.  He read it and told King Belshazzar that it meant that he was going to die and lose his throne to the Medes and Persians. That night, Darius the Mede attacked, killed Belshazzar and became the King of Babylon. 

During the commotion, a young girl came and grabbed the leg of Darius, thinking she was running to Belshazzar.  Darius looked down at this 12-year-old girl and saw that she was beautiful and he had compassion on her and let her live.

She was the daughter of Belshazzar.

In the adjacent territory of Persia, King Cyrus is ruling and his wife happens to be Darius’ daughter.  Cyrus and his wife, the daughter of Darius had a child named Ahasuerus… but we know him as Xerxes.  By now, this 12-year-old young woman has grown into a beautiful woman and Darius sees another opportunity.  He gives this young woman to be the wife of Xerxes and unites the kingdoms.  What is the name of the young lady, the daughter of a slain Babylonian ruler Belshazzar? Her name is best known as Queen Vashti.

You almost need a family tree to keep up with all this character development.  Here’s a recap incase you missed something…

So there’s Cyrus the Great and Belshazzar and Darius… Darius gives his daughter in marriage to Cyrus, they have a son Xerxes… then Darius defeats the King of Babylon and captures young princess Vashti and later gives her to be the wife, or Queen of Persia, when Xerxes takes the throne, uniting what became the Persian Empire.

If this were an HBO Series, the episode would end right here… but our story goes on into episode 2.

Sermon Slide

Now that we have that background, let’s look back at the very beginning of the book of Esther.  Xerxes is the King of Persia with a territory spanning from modern-day India to Egypt.  After he has been on the throne for a couple of years, he throws a huge 180-day party. History tells us the party was in preparation for the now famous Battle of Thermopylae (maybe you recognize it better as the battle of the 300 Spartans).

So, while Xerxes was having his big pre-battle party, we read in verse 9 that Queen Vashti also gave a banquet for the women in the royal palace of King Xerxes.  And now the stage is set for the drama to begin.

About a week into the party, when everyone has been drunk on wine for days, some of the men start asking the King to bring in the Queen.  So, the king decides to call for the Queen to come in with her crown on her head and dance for the men.  Now, many scholars have read this and tell us that all the king wanted her to wear was the crown… ALL he wanted her to wear was the crown… you understand what I’m saying… The crown and nothing but the crown… and she refused.  You don’t refuse the king, right!

So, she is banished.  King Xerxes goes off in battle and defeats the Greeks and then comes back from battle and starts missing Vashti… he’s lonely.  So, his advisers come up with a plan to have a beauty pageant so the king can find a new wife.  Women from across the kingdom are all brought in to prepare for the pageant.  The young women live with the king's eunuchs who help them with their beauty… for an entire year. 

Here's an excerpt from some of those preparations:

Esther 2:12-13

Sermon Slide

When it came time for Esther to come before the king, he’s like – “Shut the front door – send the rest of the women home… I’ve found my wife.”  And Esther becomes Queen.  If this was a Disney movie, the story would be over, but this is no fairy tale… this is real life.

The next scene opens with Mordecai, the uncle of now Queen Esther, overhearing a plot to kill King Xerxes.  Mordecai reports the offense, the men are arrested, tried, convicted, and executed.

If this was a miniseries, this would be the end of the 2nd episode. 

And now the 3rd episode.

The next night, a new character is introduced as the plot unfolds.  Haman is the King’s second in command, and he demands respect, but Mordecai isn’t willing to bow before him or the King since he follows the God of the Jews.  This enraged Haman, so he set a plan in motion to kill all the Jews with the King’s authority.  The problem is, the King doesn’t know Haman is talking about the Jews… and he doesn’t know that Esther is a Jew or the man that just saved his life is a Jew.  Basically, Haman tricks the king into establishing an edict to kill the Jews on a specific date the next year.  The edict was delivered across the kingdom, a Kingdom at this point that stretches across 127 Provinces, covering from modern-day India to Egypt.  This edict would have caused the total genocide of the entirety of the people of Israel.

We enter Chapter 4 with Mordecai standing at the King’s gate in sackcloth and ashes, wailing and mourning the destruction to come.  Queen Esther… A Jewess who happened to be Queen, hears him and sends a messenger to find out what is wrong. He sends a message about the edict and begs her to help, but she says, “I can’t do anything, the king hasn’t summoned me and I can’t just barge in on him.”  But Mordecai responds with the famous passage we read earlier.

“Who knows, maybe you were put in this place at this time, for just such a time as this.”

To which she replies, “Go and gather the other Jews, fast and pray for me… I will go to the King and plead for my people.  If I die, I die.”

And that is where we will pause the story for the week, but not before a little application.

It is interesting that the story of Esther is the only book of the Bible that doesn’t reference God by name; and yet, you see God’s providential hand on every detail, and we will see even more next week as we conclude the story of Esther and Mordecai. 

First of all, I find comfort in that. 

I find comfort knowing that God is with us, even when we don’t know it. 

I find comfort knowing that God is working in all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to his purpose. 

I find comfort knowing that I serve a God who is bigger than the circumstances I find myself in.

I hope you do too.

And one other thing.  Not only is God with you and not only is God working all things together for good…

God has placed you where you are for such a time as this.  You do understand that. God already has a plan for your life, you were created by a creator God. You were created in the image of God… you were created to create.  God has a special plan for you and for your life.  So that begs a few questions for each of us…

Why has God placed you here, now?

            In your current job… maybe today in this church… maybe it's as you travel… What opportunity to bring God’s Kingdom to earth as it is in heaven is before you?

Why has God placed you here,

AND

Who has God placed you here to talk to? To minister to?

            Maybe it’s that person next to you, or that person you have had a disagreement with.  Maybe it’s that person in the office next door, or your neighbor.  Who is God calling you to have a holy conversation with?

What has God placed you here to do?

            What difference are you called to make for God’s Kingdom?  You weren’t created by accident. You make a difference.  What has God placed you here to do?

Maybe you have very specific answers to those questions… or maybe you don’t have a clue, it’s OK…

Sermon Slide

Discovering God’s call on our lives is part of our journey. 

It is a journey that begins with accepting that God is with you, Emmanuel, made known in the incarnation… God in the Flesh… It is accepting the work of Jesus on the Cross, that Jesus died for you and rose again, defeating the power of sin and death. 

It is accepting that God lives on in you through the power of the Holy Spirit.

It is through living out the journey that we begin to find the answers to who, what, and why we are here today.

So, today, I invite you to take a step in that journey…

Let us pray