The Trifecta

How to live faithfully?

This one of the fundamental questions Scripture tries to teach throughout each book and chapter. What does it look like to faithfully love God and love others.

Faithfulness is a broken world.

We live in a broken world which is not ideal in many regards. Our world is messed up. We are broken individuals as well. Esther even more so teaches us this because the people whom the story uses are those who did not go back to Jerusalem after the exile. They remained in “exile”.

Faithfulness when God is absent.

There is no direct reference to God in the whole book of Esther. There is no direct reference to praying and the only spiritual concept we see is fasting. God seems to be not be present. Where is God? could have been the refrain of the exile.

God’s working in “unspiritual” places.

The remnant had returned to Jerusalem. The nation of Israel was finally going to get “back to normal”. Yet, the threat and danger still exists. God must work not in Jerusalem but in Susa. The same is true for us today; God must work not just in the church but in the world. We must be open to God working in the most unlikely places. This may be one of the subtle lessons of this book.

Esther is filled with many “unknowns” and ambiguity which can make it very frustrating. Yet, we must remind ourselves God can do whatever God wants to do, wherever God wants to do it.

Be careful of excess.

As one commentator put it, this chapter is all about excess. Excess in any one area of our life may become the temptation used to lead us away from faithfulness. “Stuff” is not a bad thing. But it brings with it a different set of temptations and challenges. This is different than just having an abundance of any one thing. Abundance can lead to generosity. Excess leads to pride and power. Which the first part of our Trifecta this morning.

Trifecta #1- Power and Pride

Pride leads to destruction.

The first of our Trifecta this morning is pride. Xerxes is showing off to all who will listen. He throws a party for months, close to 6 maybe, in order to gain the support of others for his impending military conquest, which fails. The whole scene is meant to have people view the King as their savior, as their leader, as the one worthy of faithfulness.

The issue of power and pride is one of the reasons the nation of Israel went into exile in the first place. The kings started to see themselves in ways which were contrary to who they were. They started to think of themselves excessively and how to stay above their “people”.

Pride is excess thinking of self.

This was the temptation in the Garden of Eden for Adam and Eve. Think of yourself as being greater, in excess of reality. Just think of yourself more. Jesus was tempted to think of this without the struggle of the cross in the temptations of the wilderness. For Xerxes he thought of himself in this way and was trying to “bribe” and convince others this was the case. His view needed to be their view.

Trifecta #2- Anger

As we think of ourselves in greater amounts of time and in a better light than reality when someone does or says something to come against it our reaction may be to get angry. We feel as if our “rights” have been violated. We can feel as if we are owed something which is not being paid. Yet, I know I rarely see my anger in this way. I see my anger as always justified even if the Spirit may be saying it is just because of my pride.

Anger can lead to impulses.

Anger is not a bad thing, necessarily. We must be willing to see the truth in anger and not just sweep the emotion away. Notice I say “can” lead because unlike pride which Scripture seems to always use in a negative sense, this is not true of anger. Jesus got angry. Paul got angry. Neither were impulsive in their response to anger.

Xerxes feels slighted and gets angry. How day the queen defy the most powerful man in the world? The humor of the story starts to show. The most powerful man undone by the word “no”.

Trifecta #3- Fear/Anxiety

It is easy to see fear and anxiety in others but not so easy to see it in ourselves. Fear and anxiety have an uncanny way of hiding their true nature. Sometimes they are not rationale or logical. Other times it is because of their reasonableness their power takes hold.

In Esther fear and anxiety when coupled with the other two parts of the Trifecta creates a recipe for disaster. The kings advisors are scared they may not be able to do whatever they want. They are scared their power will be taken from them. So they do as we do, force others to submit.

Jesus fights the Trifecta.

This is our only hope. We cannot do it on our own because the nature of sin and our world is such we will not win. Yet, we have someone, who if we submit to, will fight the battle for us.

In the unspiritual place of the cross, God is found.

When the world thought God was silent he was still moving. On our path of being faithful to Christ in a broken world let us be reminded of this truth this day and everyday. God has not stopped working just because we can’t see it. God has not stopped working just because things aren’t “normal”. God has not stopped working just because it looks different. No God is still working. God has not gone to bed nor is he dead. No God is found