It just so happens…

Have you ever heard of the latin American TV show genre called “telenovelas?” They are incredibly dramatic TV shows that are known for their romance, ridiculous plots, dramatic interactions, and bad acting.

The Book of Esther has most of those! (they weren’t acting, it was real)

In the Book of Esther, there is romance, assassination plots, political intrigue, family drama, and horrible villains.

But throughout all of this story, God is working through all of the circumstances to help the people of God flourish.

Intro to Esther

Ok, so just like any good telenovela, here’s a cast list that’s going to help us understand what’s going on. They each have a role that we think they’re going to have, and what they actually do.

King Ahasuerus: A powerful king who’s supposed to be in power, but really just a drunk idiot who does what he’s told.

Queen Esther: A beautiful woman who’s supposed to do what she’s told, but really a brave woman who risks her life for her people.

Mordecai: The older cousin of Esther who acts as the wisdom character for Esther.

Haman: The slimy villain who is angry and resentful.

Some more information for you:

God is never mentioned in the entire book.

In the entire book, God’s name is never mentioned

BUT, the book is full of little “coincidences”

there’s always these little, “and it just so happened that”

None of the characters are true “heroes.”

Esther and Mordecai are good and brave, but they are both people who do not follow the law of God. Esther hides her faith, and Mordecai tells her to hide her faith and marry a Gentile.

The point of this is not to point us to be like someone else, like when we read the story of Jesus.

These are deeply flawed people

The only true Hero in this entire book is God.

So, now, let’s read chapters 1-2 together, and then we’ll see what we can learn from this introduction to the best telenovela

Esther 1-2

To sum up, here’s what happened.

There was a king in Persia, named Ahasuerus. He through a giant party (like, a six month party) where there was a lot of drinking and bad behavior.

the king, being very drunk, wanted his queen to parade through his subjects so that they could all ogle at her. She denies the request, and the king, ever the drunk idiot, talks to his advisors (who are all men) and they tell him to send her away.

After awhile, the king get’s sad because he misses his wife, but he had made a decree that she had to leave, and he can’t back out of it. So his drunk idiot friends decide to host a beauty pageant and parade a stream of women for the king to see if he oculd find a new wife.

At the same time, we’re introduced to Esther, who is a young Jewish woman who’s known for being very beautiful. She’s an orphan, and her older cousin Mordecai takes care of her. Esther is taken into the beauty pageant, but Mordecai tells her to hide that she’s Jewish. She does well, and eventually marries the king and becomes the queen of Persia.

Around this time, Mordecai here’s about a plot to harm the king, but he brings all of the information to Esther, who gives it to the king and the men are arrested (this feels really random but it’s going to be SUPER important later.

So, what do we learn?

Coincidences are rarely coincidences.

Throughout this entire section, things just “happen.”

The king “happens” to send away Queen Vashti

The advisors “happen” to suggest a beauty pageant

Esther “happens” to be very beautiful and unmarried.

Esther “happens” to catch the eye of the guy running the pageant and the king himself.

Mordecai “happens” to hear about a plot on the kings life and saves him.

Clearly God is at work in this story.

All of these coincidences don’t just “happen,” they were God working in the lives of His people to save Israel.

It kind of reminds me of this quote from Archbishop William Temple

“When I pray, coincidences happen. When I don’t, they don’t.” - Archbishop William Temple

One of my good friends Dustyn was walking to his house in Ireland with his wife, and he saw a sunglass case on the ground for Raybans. He picked it up and told his wife, “I guess God’s going to give me a pair of sunglasses!” and didn’t think anything of it. The next week, they went to the beach, when they came back to their car, there was a pair of raybans sitting right in front of it.

Coincidences happen all the time, and it’s easy for us to write them off as simply that, a coincidence.

“Oh, I just worked really hard, that’s why I passed that test that I prayed for last week.”

“Isn’t it weird that the friend that I was just thinking about asking to go to youth group winded up next to me at Safeway? “

I just recently lost an armband that holds my phone that I was using for running. I remember being upset because I really didn’t want to have to find another one. After like 45 minutes of searching, I just gave up and said this little prayer about finding it. The next morning I had to get something out of my trunk and it was sitting there in the back of my trunk. Would you like to know what I thought?! “I can’t believe I didn’t look in there, I’m glad I remembered!”

ZERO THOUGHT TOWARDS GOD! It was a “coincidence.”

So the question that we have now is,

What are the “coincidences” in your life?

We have to open our eyes to see when God is moving in our lives and be willing to see and acknowledge it!

This week, when a little “coincidence” happens, acknowledge Who is communicating to you and listen!

Maybe it’s just a little nudge that God gives to remind you He loves you, maybe it’s a loudspeaker trying to pull you away from sin, but whatever it is. Listen to it!

God gives opportunities, we just have to take them.

All of these coincidences add up in the lives of Esther and Mordecai to where, very quickly, Esther is the queen of Persia, Mordecai has stopped an assassination plot, and the king loves Esther.

But they didn’t need to do those things.

Esther could have tried to get kicked out by the king

Mordecai could have said nothing about the assassination plot.

But it seems like they were keyed in to the idea that God had placed this opportunity in front of them for a reason, and had removed others for a reason.

They seemed to believe that all of the tiny events in their lives had added up to this, both the successes and failures.

When I was in high school, I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to be an anesthesiologist, specifically. They are the guys that knock you out in surgery and keep you out.

The goal for me was to get done with school as quick as possible, and so I applied to a program that would get me through my bachelor’s and MD program in 4.5 years (it normally takes 7). I did internships, I took extra classes, I worked really hard to get into this program. There were two big tests that I had to take in order to get in, the SAT and the ACT. You had to get pretty high scores in both in order to get in. So I took the SAT’s first. I waited a month, and I got my results back: I crushed it! I wasn’t going to be winning any awards, but I did pretty well. Then, I took the ACT. Now, the ACT is a test that is out of 36 points. 23 is considered fairly average, but the program I wanted needed me to get a 33 minimum on the ACT. I took it, I struggled through it, and then I waited. Eventually, I got my email, I opened it up… 32. I missed my dream by a point.

See, I got super upset at myself, and a little angry at God after this. Why couldn’t I just make it in!? So, I thought that I would work the slow route and just start doing my bachelors the normal way. I enrolled in school and was planning to go, but it was the summer before I started college that God really grabbed ahold of me and made it clear that pastoral ministry is what I needed to do.

If I had made it into that program, I would have never stopped. Right now, I would have been a doctor for about 2 years, making an insane amount of money, and I would have hatted my life.

God worked in my life to bring me to where I needed to be, not where I wanted to be.

God works in your life too. Maybe all of these little coincidences in your life have added up to one big window of opportunity!

Maybe you keep trying to get out of coming to youth group, but there’s always another reason to go. Maybe that’s God working on you to tell you that you need to be here.

Maybe at school there’s a person that you don’t like, but you find you always end up talking to them. What if that’s God giving you the opportunity to show them the love of Jesus in your friendship with them!

Maybe you’ve never fully given yourself over to Jesus, and you find yourself thinking about Clark’s sermon often or about the questions you have about Jesus. That’s God reaching out to you to make His love known for you!

The question is, are you going to take the opportunity?

Coincidences are rarely coincidences, they are opportunities given by God, are you going to seize them and try to follow God the best you can? Or, are you willing to let your life look different because you are following God?

All of this supremely points to Jesus.

All of your life, all of the little coincidences, all of it points to Jesus. God was the one that took care of Esther and Mordecai, and He’s taking care of you too.

He takes your sin on Himself, He died so that you can have life, and He invites you into relationship with Him so that you can experience true joy.

The circumstances of our lives draw us to the cross.

Questions

What is your favorite TV show?

What is one thing you noticed from the sermon?

How can you be more aware of the little, “coincidences” that happen in your life?

What is one opportunity that God has been giving you recently?