Esther 2:1-18
Let’s hear the word of the living
God beginning at verse two of Esther. It says, after these
things, that’s code for a whole bunch has happened. We’ll speak
of that in a moment. After these things, when the
anger of King Ahasuerus had abated, he remembered Vashti and what
she had done and what had been decreed against her. And the
king’s young men who attended him said, let beautiful young
virgins be sought out for the king, and let the king appoint
officers in all the provinces of his kingdom to gather all
the beautiful young virgins to the harem in Susa, the capital,
under the custody of Haggai, the king’s eunuch, who is in
charge of the women. Let their cosmetics be given
to them and let the young woman who pleases the king be queen
instead of Vashti. And of course, this pleased the
king and he did so. Now there was a Jew in Susa,
the citadel, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei,
the son of a Kish, a Benjamite. who had been carried away from
Jerusalem among the captives, carried away with Jeconiah, king
of Judah, whom Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, had carried
away. He was bringing up Hadassah, that is Esther, the daughter
of his uncle, for she had neither father nor mother. The young
woman had a beautiful figure and was lovely to look at, and
when her father and mother died, Mordecai took her as his own
daughter. So when the king’s order and
his edict were proclaimed and when many young women were gathered
in Susa, the citadel in custody of Haggai, Esther also was taken
into the king’s palace and put in custody of Haggai, who had
charge of the women. And the young woman pleased him
and won his favor, and he quickly provided her with cosmetics and
her portion of food with seven chosen young women from the king’s
palace and advanced her. and her young women to the best
place in the harem. Esther had not made known her
people or kindred for Mordecai had commanded her not to make
it known. And every day Mordecai walked
in front of the court of the harem to learn how Esther was
and what was happening to her. Now, when the turn came for each
young woman to go into King Ahasuerus after being 12 months under the
regulations for the women, since this was the regular period of
their beautifying, six months with oil and of myrrh and six
months with spices and ointments for women, when young women went
into the king in this way, she was given whatever she desired
to take with her from the harem to the king’s palace. In the
evening she would go in, in the morning she would return, to
the second harem in custody of Shagaz, the king’s eunuch, who
was in charge of the concubines. She would not go into the king
again unless the king delighted in her and she was summoned by
name. When the turn came for Esther, the daughter of Abahel,
the uncle of Mordecai, who had taken her as his own daughter,
to go into the king, she asked for nothing except what Haggai,
the king’s eunuch who had charge of the woman, advised. Now Esther
was winning favor in the eyes of all who saw her. And when
Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus and to his royal palace in the
10th month, which is the month of Tebeth in the seventh year
of his reign, the king loved Esther more than all the women.
And she won grace and favor in his sight more than all the virgins
so that he set the royal crown on her head and made her queen
instead of Vashti. Then the king gave a great feast
for all his officials and servants. It was Esther’s feast. And he
also granted a remission of taxes to the provinces and gave gifts
with royal generosity. Amen. The word of the living
God. Now, some of you are probably scratching your head and saying,
this sounds more like a lifetime movie. Some of you are saying,
is this really in the Bible? kind of flipped back and forth
and checked to make sure. Esther, this book of the Bible,
remember, has had canon trouble. Not the bang, bang, boom, boom
canon, but remember, the canon of the Bible, the standard of
the scriptures. And why? What big reason? Well,
God is never mentioned. But there’s another problem here.
You’ve got a young Jewish woman, and I think you picked up on
it. We don’t need to explain it.
She’s gotten herself into a real pickle. She’s going to eat food
not in the Jewish diet. She’s going to do things not
in the Jewish moral code. And it’s going to seem like she’s
the hero of the story. Why this in the scriptures? So
we think to 2 Timothy chapter 3. All scripture is breathed
out by God and is useful for teaching and rebuking and correction
and training in righteousness so that the man of God is thoroughly
equipped. So there’s something in this passage. There’s something
in this story for us. I want us to think about this
passage from a couple of different angles. It’s got a lot in it
and it really only has one thing that connects it, but there’s
a lot of disjointed thoughts and themes. The first thing we
want to think about is the king is back from war. Our passage
began this way, after these things, and you could connect that back
to the party where Vashti would not come in with her crown. And you can think back to all
the king’s advisors saying, this shouldn’t be done. And you can
think back to the royal edict. Remember, they had a women’s
lib problem on their hands. Everybody in the kingdom is gonna
go home and tell their husbands no, and we can’t be having that,
nor are we gonna be eating microwave meals for supper. We can’t have
the women of the empire hanging up their aprons. That was kind
of the thought. So back from war, after these
things, how do we know he’s back from war? Well, you’re going
to fast forward to where he picks Esther, his queen, and it says
in the seventh year of his reign. Well, the last time we were with
A.S. Harris, it was the third year
of his reign, throwing a big old party. and it was after another
loss, couldn’t conquer a certain land, couldn’t increase his empire. So he’s back from war, back from
trying to capture Greece, didn’t work out. Maybe some of y’all
watch. PBS, Masterpiece Theater, the
little voice, last time on Masterpiece. Next time on Masterpiece, that’s
kind of the idea here. Queen Vashti has refused, there’s
the crisis in the kingdom, lost to the Greeks. He’s back home
after four years of tumult, both in the palace, but out in his
vast lands, and it’s time to relight the home fires. And some
have thought when it says, His anger abated there in verse one,
and he remembered Vashti and what she had done and what had
been decreed. And some suggest that maybe he got to thinking,
you know, without the alcohol, Vashti wasn’t so bad. She was
a good wife, a good woman, a good queen. She kept things going
at home. He probably came back to a palace
in disarray. We’re speculating here, but he’s
probably wishing he hadn’t banished her. But nevertheless, he’s the
head of state. Remember, he rules the most vast
empire of the time up to that point in human history from Ethiopia
to India, and so he needs a queen. He’s a head of state. He needs
someone at his arm, and so back from war. That’s the first thing
we want to think about. The second thing we want to think
about is this beauty pageant. Think back, you fellows, to your
teenage years, your high school years. You went to school with
100, maybe 200 in your class. The cream of the crop. There might have been seven or
eight pretty girls in the school that you had your eyes on and
you could have none of them. Well, just look here at Xerxes. He’s got 127 provinces, thousands
of miles wide. north to south, a vast empire
as well. And he brings all the beautiful
women of this empire into a harem, into a beauty school, a camp
for girls, so to speak. At Sousa, he gives them all the
makeup they want. You know, they got the Clinique
counter and you walk through the mall and you see all the,
you know, they attack you, not us, but you girls, you get, you
know, would you like some perfume and all that? They’re all there.
He’s brought them all in, all the New York designers. And there’s
the extravagance of the king again. What’s he going to do?
Bring every young girl who’s pretty from the vast kingdom.
He’s going to bring them to one place, give them everything they
want, all the hair stylists, all the clothing stylists, all
the beautification processes. You know, you watch some of y’all
wake up too early in the morning. What’s on TV? Infomercials. You know, make your skin look
new, all the rest. So he’s got them all there. My
pillow. Got them all there. They’re gonna get their sleep
their rest their beauty. They’re gonna get it get it all And what’s
the purpose here? He needs somebody that will please
him So we’ve got we got this beauty pageant for this King
and you know, we’re living in the me too movement we’re still
not over what’s-his-name’s little island and who’s been there and
Kind of smells a little of that doesn’t it? taking taking folks
who ought not be there, but using them for your own purposes. You
please the king on one special night, he puts you into his harem,
and if he calls you back, you’ve got a job. But what if he never
calls you back? You’re used up, you’re spent,
you go into retirement. Notice the absence of Proverbs
31 here. God is not providing a wife for him. He’s not looking
for someone of character. He’s not looking for someone
noble. He’s not looking for someone whose beauty is, well, just skin
deep. He’s not looking for someone
of wisdom and who will make his home prosper. And so there’s
this beauty pageant for the King who is back from war. Then there’s
a third little theme we want to think about, and it’s Esther
getting to the front of the line, but it’s the wrong line. And
I hope you’ve seen that in this passage. We’re reminded that
our citizenship is in heaven, right? We’re not from here. We’re
exiles. We’re strangers. We’re passing
through, we’re marching to the new Jerusalem. We are citizens
of heaven, of new Jerusalem, but we live in Babylon. And so
it’s a challenge for us to live principled lives in the midst
of a crooked and depraved generation. It’s a challenge to live a Christian
life, a God-fearing life, a holy life in 21st century America. We recognize that. Where are her principles? She’s
fed the king’s diet. I don’t know exactly, but I imagine
in this harem you weren’t the skinny, what do we call it?
the folks who haven’t eaten malnourished. Imagine you were kind of plump,
but she’s eating the King’s diet. Now contrast that with Daniel.
Last book study, what did Daniel do? He refused the King’s food. And he said, look here, try this
diet on me and my buds and you see if it works. And it did.
And it pleased those who were over Daniel and his companions.
but she just gives up her principles, her Jewish dietary laws. She’s
third, fourth generation exile now, but she gives up those dietary
laws, but it gets worse. She gives up the purity laws. You’ve stumbled your way through
Leviticus and your daily Bible reading plan and you know there’s
this rule and that rule and don’t touch this and don’t touch that
and don’t be unclean and don’t, well, don’t marry foreigners.
That was one of the big sins for the people of God. You marry
a Hebrew. Remember when Abraham was getting
old? Isaac had come along and Abraham’s into his hundreds and
he needs a wife for his son Isaac. And he says, don’t you let my
son marry a Canaanite. And so what does he say to Eliezer
of Damascus or whoever his man was? You take these camels and
you take these gold treasures and you go back to my people. And remember the whole scene
with the water trough. Lord, if you’re going to send a wife
for Isaac, let it be the one who waters my camels. That’s
a really great way to get a wife for your kid. And it just so
happens in God’s providence, there’s a wife for Isaac. And
so God blesses, but what’s she going to do here? She’s going
to marry a pagan king. And it’s not that he’s a pagan
king with good values. or a decent fellow who will provide
for her. This is a wicked man. This is
one of those guys we see on TV in the Me Too movement that we
hate, we despise, we pray against, we judge, and rightly so in many
ways. But she’s moved to the front
of the line. You could use words. She’s caved.
She’s compromised. She’s pragmatic. You know, I’m
gonna get a college degree no matter what it takes so I can
get a job and pay and I’m gonna go to work at this company and
I’m gonna do what they ask. You know, isn’t it interesting
in God’s providence this morning we had a sermon on Acts chapter
four, we must obey God rather than men. And you can kill us,
that’s fine. But here, the same night, we
have a passage about a young girl who, well, she does what
it takes. She does what it takes to make
her way in this world. And so that’s the struggle we
face. You want to get to the front of the line? You want to
get to the front of the wrong line? You’ll have to compromise. We live in two worlds, one eternal,
one in this life, and we need to keep our eyes on the correct
Citizenship. Well, there’s another section
of this passage we ought to think about, and that’s the hand of
God. That’s what Esther’s all about anyway. God is not mentioned,
but the hand of God is there. Maybe you remember back to English
class, I don’t know, verb tenses. Verbs are past and present and
future. Past, they happened a while back. Present, now. Future, will happen. But verbs also have voice. And
generally, there’s two voices, active and passive. Active voice,
the main subject is doing the action. You know, Billy threw
the ball. Who’s throwing the ball? It’s Billy. Other sentence,
somebody threw the ball at Billy. Who’s passive? Billy’s passive.
The ball was thrown at him. Well, there’s a lot of passive
verbs in our passage this evening. These things are done to Esther.
These things are done to Mordecai. They’re captive. They were brought
captive by God through his instrument of judgment, the Babylonians.
And so they’re captive. They’re out of the promised land.
They’re in, well, not Jerusalem, but Babylon. And I think if you
do the math, it would be something like Esther’s great-great-grandfather. This is like four or five generations
now under captivity. This is a couple hundred years
into this tragic event in the life of Israel. So passive, brought
into captivity. Passive, she’s put into the harem,
no choice. Passive, she’s made the wife.
of Ahasuerus. Passive, she’s made the queen.
But we really know who’s the active one in this passage of
scripture. It’s God. It’s God who’s at work. And there’s a reminder here.
We disobey God. We’re pragmatic. We do things
our way. But what’s the old saying? God
hits a straight lick with a crooked stick. God uses us with all our
sin, all our foibles, all our faithless moments. Our Wednesday
night study has certainly seen that in the life of Abraham. But think about the hand of God
in Esther’s life. Esther is her, it’s her Persian
name, it means star. Her Jewish name, Hadassah, means
myrtle. And there’s a funny little twist
of words here in a couple of the Old Testament books. There’s
generally the desert, the sand, and thorns, but up pops a myrtle. Up pops out of a dark and dry
land a thing of beauty. And that’s Esther. That’s Hadassah,
the myrtle. She’s probably from an upper-class
Jewish family, but exiled generations down. I think back to I think
the late 1990s when Eastern Europe, the old Soviet bloc, was falling
apart. There was trouble in, I believe,
the Ukraine, and some Ukrainian refugees, I remember, came to
Burlington way back in the late 90s, and a family came, I think
they were from Kosovo, actually, now that my memory’s getting
a little more clear, from Kosovo, and I remember the family coming
to our church. We adopted them. The husband
had been a, pretty intelligent engineer, had a good job. The
wife was a biology professor at a university, but they had
to escape for their lives. They had a summer home, a city
apartment. They left their dishes. In fact,
I think the dishes were destroyed through the conflict, but they
had to come here and start completely over. And it’s interesting, isn’t
it, how God moves us, but God works in these hard circumstances. I would imagine if Esther had
her way, she would have done none of these things. She would have picked a different
life, a quiet life. But nevertheless, here she is,
the hand of God. Then there’s uncle Mordecai.
And why did it go into his genealogy? Mordecai, the Jew of the tribe
of Kish, who was of Kish. Saul of Tarsus, that’s Paul. Saul, King Saul. So he’s a Jew,
he’s an Israelite. Well, who did the Kishites war
against? Who did Israel war against? Agag
and the Amalekites. Remember their first battle into
the promised land? Moses had to hold up his hands.
As long as he held his hands up, he prevailed against the
Amalekites. When his hands fell, War turned the other way. So
Aaron on one side, her on the other, sat him on a rock and
they propped his hands up so that the people of God would
prevail. But this is an ancient battle. Haman and Mordecai, an ancient
battle, God’s people against the wicked people of the world
yet again. So how does the Lord use messy
situations like this? How does he use exile? How does
he use beauty pageants? How does he use the extravagance
of a wicked king. Well, he uses it in miraculous
ways. So I think one of the things
we’ll continue to see in this story is God is never not at
work. Circumstances may be dark. We
may be put in situations we don’t like. We may do things that we,
well, they torment us for the rest of our lives because we
compromised, we gave in. But God is sovereign, God is
at work, and these are things we ought to keep in mind. Let’s go before God in prayer.
Our Lord, we thank you that the worst things done by the world
are often used by you for great things. We remember the Lord
Jesus handed over into the hands of sinners, condemned and crucified. What was meant for evil was the
greatest thing on the face of the earth. And so we look to
this story and we see your hand, you’re at work saving your people. And we pray that you would bless
us as we consider these things. May you write these truths in
our minds and on our hearts. In the name of Christ, amen.