Esther Sermon - 8
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Behind the Seen: Poetic Justice
Esther 7:1-10
1. Introduction – It’s been a couple weeks since we’ve been in Esther, so here’s a quick reminder of how far we’ve come in the story.
a. Esther was made queen of Persia; Mordecai thwarted a plot to assassinate the king, but he wasn’t rewarded for it.
i. Haman was promoted to second in command in all of the empire, and because of his fragile ego, he made a plan to kill Mordecai because he wouldn’t bow down to him.
1. Not only did he want to kill Mordecai, but he wanted to wipe out all of the Jews scattered throughout the Persian empire.
b. Mordecai asked Esther to go to the king and beg for their lives; after fasting for 3 days and nights, she went to the king and invited him and Haman to a banquet.
i. And at that banquet, she invited them to another one on the following night.
c. And the last time we looked at Esther we reached the pivot point of the book. The point on which all the action revolves and the tension of the book begins to resolved.
i. On the night in between the first and second banquet – on that night the king couldn’t sleep.
1. And from that night of insomnia, the king realizes that Mordecai was never rewarded for his loyalty; Haman, who came in seeking permission to humiliate and kill Mordecai on an impaling pole, was told to go out and show honour to Mordecai.
a. And at the end of chapter 6, after experiencing a humiliating day, the palace guards came to take Haman to his second private banquet with the royal couple. Maybe his day will get better in chapter 7. Let’s pick up the action there.
2. Retelling – Chapter 7 begins innocently enough – with yet another dinner party.
a. Banquets are a main theme in this book and it seems like crazy things always happen at them. And this scene is no exception.
i. At this banquet and for the third time overall, the king asks Esther what she wants. And the English translation we read was a little vague as to what exactly Xerxes said.
1. Literally he said to Esther, “What is your petition? And what is your request?” It’s actually really important to understand this.
b. So, Esther sets about the very delicate process of inciting the king’s anger, but having that anger directed towards Haman and not herself.
i. Esther has to get her point across, with getting the king angry at her for hiding something from him for their entire marriage.
1. And she also has to accuse Haman of this evil deed without incriminating the king, who ultimately, and blindly, gave his approval.
c. Esther begins, and for the first time in the book, Esther publicly associates herself with God’s people – sorta. She doesn’t name the Jews by name, or even admits that she is a Jew; she simply states, “Me and my people.
i. But I want us to look at how skillfully Esther responds to the king.
1. Again, our English translation we read misses this point, but Esther uses the king’s own question against him and she asks for 2 things.
a. Esther says, “This is my petition – that my life be spared.” But she goes on to say, “And this is my request.” Remember what Xerxes said, “what’s your petition and request?” Well, Esther just used that to her advantage to ask that her life and the lives of her people be spared.
d. She used the wording of king’s question to her advantage – and in so doing she links her fate with the fate of her people.
i. If they die, she dies. If they live, she also will live.
e. And Esther’s skillful response just keeps getting better.
i. She uses the exact words of Haman’s edict to incriminate him beyond a shadow of a doubt.
1. She uses the words “kill, slaughter and annihilate” the exact words that we saw in chapter 3.
f. And her skillful tactics worked – the king was infuriated, completely oblivious, but Esther has successfully incited Xerxes’ fickle temple.
i. “Who would do such a thing?” Xerxes demanded. And at this point I want to remind you of the timeline of this book, because things happen quickly.
1. Haman makes a request to Xerxes for this edict to become law – so he does.
a. A day or so later Mordecai informs Esther of what is going down and asks her to go the king and beg for their lives.
i. Esther and the Jews fast for 3 days, then she goes and that night invites Xerxes to the 1st banquet she threw for him and invites him to the one they are at right now.
g. From the time that Haman made his request to Xerxes to where we are now at this second banquet is literally less than a week!
i. Apparently signing the death warrant for an entire people group in his Empire was hardly a blip on the radar for a self-indulgent king like Xerxes.
1. Who would threaten you like this? Xerxes asked. And I’m sure it took every ounce of strength Esther had to not say, “You did, you dummy!”
h. But Esther quickly reveals that it was Haman – a mortal enemy of her people. It was Haman to plotted to kill the Jews and unknowingly Queen Esther.
i. Haman grows pale, Xerxes storms out of the room.
i. We’re not told why he stormed out, we aren’t told what he did or what he was thinking at the time, but one commentator I read this week read the questions circulating through Xerxes’ mind.
i. Picture this – Xerxes’ storms out the room – his head dizzy with this new revelation from his Queen – probably knowing now that he approved this edict and he thinks…
1. “Can I punish Haman for a plot I approved?” “If I do, won’t I be admitting to my role in this fiasco? How can I save face?”
a. “How can I rescind an irrevocable law that I have made?”
j. While he’s outside, Xerxes is probably figuring out how to punish Haman and not implicate himself in the process.
i. And when he comes back in the room, all his problems are solved.
ii. Because when he comes back in the room, he sees that Haman is getting a little too close to Esther.
k. While Xerxes was out of the room, Haman knew what was up and started begging for his life.
i. However, in those days, men weren’t allowed anywhere near a member of the king’s harem.
1. Men had to stay at least seven steps away from girls the harem at all times.
a. So, to think that Haman was close enough to fall on the couch where Esther was reclining was unthinkable.
l. It’s doubtful that Haman was actually attempting to molest or assault Esther, but the king saw what the king wanted to see – and it was a way for Haman to be punished and the king once again save face.
i. It’s suggested that Haman be killed on the very pole he had built just 24 hours earlier to kill Mordecai on.
1. And with that, Haman’s fate is sealed and God’s people gain a small victory.
a. But notice that the problem Haman has been resolved, but the larger issue of the impending Jewish annihilation is yet to be resolved.
i. It was made an irrevocable law, so we’ll have to wait for future weeks to see how the problem will be resolved.
3. What do we Learn? – So probably the question you’re all wondering is “What can I learn from this?
a. How can there possibly be any Christian principles from such a bizarre and chaotic scene like this one?
i. Well there actually are a couple principle we can glean from this scene.
b. First, is the relationship between evil and divine justice – neither are topics we like to look at, but both are present in this scene.
c. Evil is anything or anyone that sets itself against God. God is the very definition of righteousness and goodness, and anything that is opposed to his work, his plan, his people or his perfect will is evil.
i. In this chapter evil is personified in Haman. In fact, the author of Esther shows us that evil is not some ethereal substance ‘out there’ somewhere trying to get us.
1. Evil does not exist apart from beings who are evil.
a. And evil, wherever it occurs or whatever its motivation, always sets itself up against God – and divine justice means the inevitable destruction of all that is evil.
d. It’s kinda two sides of the same coin. All along this series we’ve been asking is God was still going to deliver his people.
i. Even though they were exiled – living as strangers in a strange land; far from Jerusalem, far from the Promised Land, far from the Temple, their centre of worship…we’ve been wondering if God’s promise of protection still applied to Esther, Mordecai and the Jews scattered among the Persian empire.
1. And the answer is yes! God providentially worked out his plan – through the misguided and often inappropriate actions of some – God still honoured the promise of protection.
e. And the hard thing for us to fathom in our day is that protection for one meant the destruction of the other.
i. If God was going to deliver Mordecai, Esther and all the other Jews, it meant the evil that rose up against them had to be destroyed – two sided of the same coin.
f. Haman also stands as an example of how self-destructive evil and sin really are.
i. Sin allows us to get caught up in a web of our own lies and deceives us into thinking our actions are too clever for us to get caught.
1. As we read through Esther, the more Haman schemed and the more he plotted, the more he dug his own grace and sealed his own fate.
a. Haman had all the wealth and resources of the Persian empire available to him, but his scheme, his world and ultimately his life came undone because one night the king couldn’t sleep – and Haman was exposed.
i. This is what sin does to us – it deceives us into thinking that while others may get caught – we won’t.
ii. But what the author of Esther reminds us is that no matter how powerful a person may be – now matter one’s social status or political position – this chapter reminds us that if we set ourselves up against the ways of God, we will be exposed and we will be brought down.
1. It happened to Haman, it’s happened to countless other ruthless dictators through history.
a. Haman warns us, don’t be deceived by sin. Don’t get caught in its web, don’t set yourself up against the ways of God and what God is trying to do – it will not go well for you.
4. Who Gets Life – The second principle this chapter wants us to reflect on is who gets to live and who doesn’t.
a. The great reversal of this scene is that the one who is doomed to die get to live and the one who seemed to be in control ends up dead.
i. Why? Well, it has to do with identification. Something that’s not easily perceived in the story of Esther is that for the first few chapters, Esther is swept along by circumstances outside of her control.
1. But, when Esther decides to go to the king on behalf of her people, when she finally and publicly identifies herself with God’s people, she starts dictating the action and begins to have success.
a. And it is because of her identification with God’s people that she is saved and Haman is destroyed.
b. So what this chapter reveals to us is that life and death are determined by identification with a people.
i. And this is something that is carried over in to the NT also. Jesus told his disciples that if they identify themselves with him, they will live – just as he is living.
1. Identifying with Jesus means ultimate deliverance from death and life lived for all of eternity in the presence of God.
a. And on the reverse side of that, NOT identifying with Jesus, not standing for his ways or standing in opposition to the things God – means identifying yourself with those aren’t in Christ.
i. And that means if we don’t identify ourselves with Jesus, we are doomed to spend eternity separated from him.
1. Identification with a people determines who gets life and who doesn’t
a. Esther lives because she came out and said who she was and stood up for her people; Haman was doomed because he stood in opposition to God.
ii. And in our day, we must make sure that we identified with Christ, first by having our sins forgiven through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross – and then we must make sure we are constantly identifying ourselves with him by living godly lives on this earth.
5. Application – so what does all of this mean for us today?
a. Well, first in regards to divine justice. Sometimes it seems as if the wicked prosper while the righteous suffer.
i. Well, what this chapter shows us is that we need to have a persevering patience. We must have faith and trust that the Hamans of this world will face their day of reckoning.
1. We must have faith that evil will not rule forever, but God will vindicate his people.
a. Even though the delay of diving justice may stretch our patience to its breaking point, we must remember that while it may be a long time in coming – God’s justice never fails.
i. As Christians we must have preserving patience.
b. And secondly, as Christians, we must live purposely and consciously out of tune with this world and in tune with the ways of God.
i. Here’s what I mean by that. This world, because of sin, will always set itself up against the ways of God. It will run contrary and even seek to destroy the ways and people of God.
1. As God’s people, as people who have been brought from darkness into his marvelous light – we can’t live the world around us.
c. we must live our lives differently. As God’s people, we must look different, act different, and have a different outlook on life.
i. We must stand up for the ways and truths of God. We must structure our lives on the guidance and principles of God’s Word, not on how the world tells us to live.
1. And when we stand up for the ways God, we’ll live out of tune with the rest of the world. There will be some dissonance between our lives and their lives.
a. But – we will be in tune with the way god intended life to be lived.
d. When we identify ourselves with God – the rest of the world may look at us funny, but we know that we’re living, not according to what we think is right or what makes us feel good – we know what we are living life and doing the things that God wants us to do.
i. Live out of tune with this world, and in tune with God.
6. Conclusion – Next week, we’ll study chapter 8, it’s a lengthy passage, so read it this week, study it and familiarize yourself with how it fits into the rest of the story.
a. In 2 weeks we’ll study chapters 9-10 and that will bring our study of Esther to an absolutely epic conclusion. For next week., read chapter 8.