BACK TO THE FUTURE
ROMANS 8:12-17
JOHN 3:1-17
A Sermon by William G. McCoy
June 11, 2006
This book of Esther is a book we probably don’t visit very much. If you are a reader of the Bible with regularity, you probably don’t visit Esther with great frequency, I would think, but it is a book that has a lot to tell us. In this story, King Ahasuerus is king of a territory from India to Ethiopia, 127 provinces, and as this story opens, we are told that he is having a celebration that is to last 180 days. I went to a Greek wedding with a friend’s family one time that lasted 3 days but that fell about 177 days short of this celebration.
At the end of that time, they still had the strength to have a banquet and so King Ahasuerus called together the princes of the provinces, the military chiefs of the Medes and the Persians and all of the nobles and dignitaries and had a banquet and, as the text says, he was “merry with wine.” He called Vashti, his wife, the Queen, to come and put on her crown – he wanted the guests to see how beautiful she was – and she was beautiful. She refused to come, which was not done, with a King who could order your death if you happened to come into his chambers uninvited, or into the court uninvited. And so it was with all the people gathered there for the big celebration – CNN, C-Span, Fox News, ABC, CBS, were all there. There are helicopters hovering above, everything happening, the Queen refused to come. And so, in rage, the King says, “What should I do?” and the advisors say, “Well, who is King around here anyway?” “What will happen if the women in the kingdom get this idea that they can just not obey the commands of their husbands?” That never would happen in Charleston, but it happened there. Husbands will have TV remotes removed from their hands in the middle of a program, football games interrupted – it will be havoc! So we have to do something.
So, the King, who is King of all of the 127 provinces, Ahasuerus says he is going to fire the Queen. And so he fires Vashti from being the Queen and that means there has to be an interview process to find another Queen and that starts. The word passes and lovely, young women come from all over those provinces into the city of Susa and they are going to interview. But that doesn’t just take a brief interview; it is about a yearlong process. Those young women come in and they are anointed with myrrh and ointments of various kinds and the housing for the harem at the palace and they go to the tanning salons and have Botox injections and fitness centers, and they are really getting geared up. Two of our three daughters just got ready for the prom and I suffered for several weeks from “mousse poisoning,” from the inhalation of too much mousse, toxic levels of mousse and hairspray in my bloodstream for weeks after that. So you can imagine the palace, as they are getting ready for these interviews.
Well Esther lived right in Susa, she was lovely, and she went through the process and when the King saw her, he was smitten. He immediately knew she was the one and so Esther became Queen Esther. And Moredecai, who was really her father, in essence, had told her not to let on that she was a Jew. The Jews were not held in high esteem at that point; they were a conquered group of people. Moredecai had come from Jerusalem after Jerusalem had been conquered and become a displaced people. They had odd customs and they wouldn’t march to the “beat of the drum” that that culture set. They had their own laws and so Moredecai said, “Don’t tell them that you are a Jew just yet.” So Queen Esther took her place in the palace, loved by the King Ahasuerus, and things went along pretty well for a while. Moredecai stopped by every day, where the harem gathered, to check on her and make sure she was all right and everything was ok, as any parent would do.
I can remember when our oldest daughter, Lindsay, was about five years old, she wanted, for the first time, to walk down the street two or three blocks to her friend’s house, by herself. So Mary and I screwed up our courage and said, “Go ahead. That sounds good.” Of course, when Lindsay went out the door with instructions on how to get there, even though she knew the house and where it was, I followed along in back yards, hiding behind bushes and trees, watching her the entire way. She never knew it, (the neighbors probably thought I was out of my mind) but we got her down there and watched her until she went in the door of our neighbor’s home. Well Mordecai did the same thing. He stopped by every day – where the harem dwelled in the palace – to check in on Esther and so it was as he in the palace precincts he heard of a plot to overthrow the King and he told Esther told about it and Esther told King Ahasuerus and he thwarted the plot and hanged the ones who were going to plot against him to kill him. It was recorded in the chronicles of Kings that it was a Jew named Mordecai who had brought the news to light. And, about that time, a man named Haman, who was very ambitious and bright, but very evil, began to find favor with the King and so the King, to express his favor said, “When Haman walks by, you all have to bow down to him.” Bow and scrape – pay homage to Haman, which he liked very much. But Mordecai, being a faithful Jew would not do it. He was not to bow down to anyone or anything except God Almighty – he would not do it and he let that be known. So those around the palace precincts wanted to test that, and they got the word to Haman that this Jew was not going to bow down to him. So Haman was enraged and decided he was going to fix him. He tried to figure how he would do it and so what he did was to get to King Ahasurerus at one point to say, “There is this group of people, the Jews, throughout the provinces…they are just not with you, they are against you. They have their own laws; they do their own thing. I think, in fact, if you will give me the order to just annihilate all the Jews, I will put 10,000 talents of silver in the coffers of the palace.” And so the King said, “Well, if it is that much of a problem, go ahead.” So an edict went out that within about eleven months all of the Jews in the province were to be annihilated. A holocaust – literally – was to happen.
Mordecai got the word. He put on sackcloth and put ashes on his head in mourning, as did some of the other Jews. And Esther got the word that Mordecai, her father, was in sackcloth, and so she had clothes sent to him. She had the Gap and she had Eddie Bauer and Brook Brothers, she had everybody send clothes to him and he wouldn’t put them on. He was going to stay in sackcloth and so she wanted to know why and Mordecai got the word to her about this edict to annihilate the Jews and so the text of our sermon today, where he sends word that she should go to the King and appeal to him, and she said, “I haven’t been able to approach the King for thirty days and you know if I go in and I am not invited, I will be put to death - that’s the law, unless he extends the golden scepter to me.” So Mordecai sends back the word that this is the time that if she doesn’t God will somehow care for his people and she will miss it, and her family will be lost, and she will too, even though she is in the palace she will not be protected. And, who knows, he says, you may have come to this place in the palace for just such a time as this. And so Esther says, “Alright, please have all the faithful Jews fast and I’ll have my people fast here at the palace and then I’ll go the King and if I perish, I perish.”
And so she began to plan and she went to the King and the King saw her and fortunately extended the golden scepter to her and she came into the court there and he said, “What can I do for you?” and she said, “I would like to have a dinner, and I would like for you and Haman to come to the dinner – just the three of us, tomorrow night.” The King said, “That sounds wonderful, let’s do that.” So they had the dinner and the King said, “What is that you wanted to ask of me?” She said, “I have this request – how about one more dinner, the same thing, the three of us tomorrow evening?” The King said, “Well, then alright.” Then I will tell you want I wanted to request. Well, Haman was very full of himself, he had been to this first dinner, and was the only one in the whole kingdom invited to dinner with the King and the Queen. And so he’s bragging to his family, he’s over at the fitness center; “I had dinner with the King and Queen – just a little while ago, just the three of us.” And he is emailing his friends saying I had dinner with the King and Queen, “just the three of us.” And he told his family and they are very excited. But it galled him that even in the midst of that Mordecai would not bow to him. And so, incensed by that, he went home and ordered his people to build a gallows on which to hang Mordecai, on his own property, right there! And so they began that process. That very night, the King was unable to sleep and so he asked the servants to bring to him the Chronicles of the King and he opened it up and began to read to see if he could relax a little bit and go to sleep and there he found the story about a Jew named Mordecai who had saved him and he asked his advisors, “what’s been done for this man Mordecai?” Well, nothing much yet. “How do we honor him?” Well, they said, I’m not sure how to do that. So the next morning, he called Haman in, and said, “What would I do to honor a man who has found great favor with me?” Haman is thinking, “He must want to honor me even more than he already has, this is great.” “Well, I think you should give him a robe that you have worn, and a horse you have ridden, give him a Rolls-Royce with a chauffeur, and have, you know, a bigger, corner office with windows…give him a whole celebration. When he goes through the city, he should be announced as he arrives. He lays it on thick. The King says,” That’s great. I want you to go and do that for Mordecai, who saved my life.”
Well this is not a good day for Haman, it’s starting out bad already and so the gallows have to be put on hold. Haman is doing all of these things for Mordecai and the dinner comes that night and the Queen and the King are together, and Haman. Haman is a little agitated, his family has already told him, “This is not looking good, Haman, this is not shaping up very well,” and so he is a little concerned. The King says to the Queen, “Well, what is it you want to request of me?” and she says, “Well, there’s been this plot against the Jews and those are my people and as she explains it the King becomes enraged, leaves the room and goes out into the gardens and while he is gone, Haman breaks down and he clutches Esther, begging for her to do something and, as that is happening, the King comes back in and sees him making, what he thinks, is a pass at Esther. It’s really not a good day for Haman...this whole thing is not shaping up at all the way he thought, and so the King has him executed on the gallows he had built for Mordecai, along with his co-horts, and the Jews are uplifted and given the power to defend themselves and honored in the kingdom because of what Esther has done. For such a time as this, said Mordecai, you have come to the palace.
It may seem as we gather here at First Presbyterian Church, Charleston, for various events, that we come based on random events in our lives, that there are these kinds of coincidental happenings that bring us here, but the fact is you and I have been brought here for just such a time as this – by the hand of God, no less than was Esther brought to the palace for such a time as that. You have a role; you have a ministry to fulfill here. It is not by chance that you are here; it is not by chance that I am here – that we are here together – but for just such a time as this.
A couple named Jim and Marilyn were traveling a number of years ago through the Siskiou Mountains. They had in their car, and on their car, literally, everything they owned. Times were tough financially, Jim desperately needed a job. He was going to make the connection in northern California for that job, and in the mountains they rounded a bend in their car, hit a rock in the road, and bent something in the wheel and the car was inoperable. They were on the side of the road, just around the curve, in a dangerous spot. Another couple, John and Helen, came along. They stopped, John was a pretty good mechanic and he had tools with him and he thought maybe he could help. So, as best they could, with great difficulty, they got the car a little further off the road. They went around and put some warnings around the bend and John started to work on the car. He took off the wheel and found that the round brake drum was now elliptical and it wouldn’t turn and he needed a new brake drum and, what’s more, he needed new brake shoes and brake pads for that brake drum or nothing would work, the car could not safely be operated in the mountains without that.
So, as he was pondering what to do, this couple’s little boy, Jimmy, came up to them. He had been over the hill playing, looking around, and he said, “There’s a car over the hill, just like ours, Daddy.” He said, “Thanks, Jimmy, just a minute, we have a few things…” “But it’s just like ours Daddy, you can see, it’s over the hill, it’s sitting on its roof, its upside down.” “Oh, thanks, Jimmy, I appreciate it.” Well, after a while, he went over the hill to take a look and there, over the hill, was a car on it’s roof, the exact same year, the exact same model, even the same color as their car. There were things missing, tires and wheels and brake drums but there was one good brake drum on one wheel and so John grabbed his tools and got busy taking that brake drum off, but still without brake pads and brake shoes, it would not work – and he knew that. So, as he was working on the brake drum, he heard some noise in the back of the car where Jim was prying at the trunk trying to see what was in there and he heard the noise of the trunk opening and then there was silence for a few moments and he realized Jim was standing right beside him. He had a funny look on his face and he said, “Guess what I have here,” and he held out a crumpled paper bag that had been in the trunk, and in the bag was a brand new set of brake shoes and brake pads. John got them back on the car and they made it to their business and their job interview and it worked out.
That all happened for just such a time as that – that was not a coincidence but a God-incidence! That is the way it is in your life and mine as we seek to follow Jesus Christ. We come here not by chance but for just such a time as this. This era in our culture has been called by one social commentator, “The Third Great Awakening.” And in the midst of this “Third Great Awakening,” there is also a strange atmosphere that runs through certain areas of our media culture where it is unpopular to be a Christian, unpopular to express any kind of loyalty to Jesus Christ and so for just such a time as this, we are gathered to be those who stand up and claim Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, who visibly and boldly live and work and minister for Him in all of our lives. You are here, not by chance, not by coincidence. We are here together, not by chance, but for just such a time as this. God is doing amazing things in the world today and He has for you a great adventure, the adventure to partner with Him in the work He is doing in this world right now; what some are calling “The Third Great Awakening” and you can be a part of it. There is a role for you to play, a ministry for you, because you and I are here for just such a time as this. So the challenge is for each of us to take up individual, particular roles in that work, hand-in-hand with God himself. Come and join in the excitement as God leads us into this adventure into the future.