13 Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king’s palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. 14 For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” 15 Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai, 16 “Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.”
— Esther 4:13-16, ESV

Among our heroes of the faith in Holy Scripture, one of the most overlooked and misunderstood is a lovely lady by the name of Hadassah.  That was her Jewish name.  You know her better by her Persian name, since she lived in the 5th century BC, when what is now modern Iran ruled the world with Persian laws and Persian names.  Her Persian name is also the title of one of the books in the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament, Esther.

Esther is a controversial figure because many believe she never existed.  Her story, some say, is a parabolic tale meant to institute a holiday called Purim, and explain how Israel survived one of the many historical holocausts hurled against them.  The same speculation of storytelling is proffered for Job and Jonah, and sometimes Daniel.  Yet even if they all proved to be fictional characters, like the many in Jesus’ parables, it would not diminish the divine inspiration and absolute truths provided by their stories.

We do admit Esther cannot be corroborated by historical sources outside of Scripture; but, just about all of the other major players in her story can.  This includes the older cousin who raised her, Mordecai, their arch anti-semitic enemy, Haman, and the renowned Persian king at the time, Ahasuerus (his Hebrew name), better known by his Persian name, Xerxes.

Still, Martin Luther did not like Esther much.  He said, “There is no gospel in it” while pointing out it is the only book in the Bible that does not expressly mention the name of God.  He would have omitted Esther from the canon, along with the New Testament book of James, but both books have long proved they belong.

So let me do what I seldom like to do, disagree with Luther, and present to you the gospel according to Esther.

Grace and Providence

The gospel always begins with God’s grace.  Grace is God’s choice to make a person His own, and to assign to that person a special purpose in His kingdom.  Grace is governed by providence, the power of God to put the right people in the right place at the right time.

But sometimes, God’s grace and providence puts us in a most uncomfortable place.  This was certainly true with Hadassah, or Esther.  Born to devout Jews, she lost her parents at a young age and had to be raised by an older cousin, Mordecai.  Her immediate ancestors had been taken captive from Israel into Babylonia (modern Iraq).  When the Persians (modern Iran) conquered the Babylonians, Esther’s family was brought to live in and under the rule of Persia.

The Persian king at the time, Xerxes, or Ahasueras in the book of Esther, decided to depose his wife, Vashti, like Henry VIII got rid of Catherine of Aragon, and marry a younger, hotter chick.  By this time Esther had been taken into the kings harem, and a beauty contest among the concubines made Esther the winner.

Esther the winner, if you can call a winner someone born into captivity, placed into sexual slavery, then forced to marry an old, ugly, power-mad king.  Yet God’s grace had placed her there, and God’s providence put her in the palace, “for such a time as this.”

“Such a time” was dire for the Israelites in Persia.  Antisemitism ran rampant in the empire, and a key cabinet member, Haman, was on the eve of accomplishing a plot that would literally annihilate the Jews living in and around Persia.  Ahasueras the King, no doubt a racist in his own right, had no idea he had married a Jew, as Esther like many Hebrews in the empire kept her race a secret.

Cousin Mordecai knew about the plot, and called on Esther to reveal herself to the king and try to stop it.  This created two major problems for the young queen.  Revealing her Jewishness was one thing, but approaching the King without being summoned was one of those peculiar crimes in Persia that carried a death sentence.  Walk in on the king, they wack off your head.  Unless, that is, you receive an immediate pardon, or grace, from the king, who was not prone to passing out pardons.

What would Esther do?  Would she diminish God’s grace, use it only for herself, keep her secret, do nothing, and hope to live while the other Jews died?  Or, would she magnify God’s grace, show forth a little faith, make a stand for God and God’s people, even at the risk of her own life.

Grace had placed her there.  Providence had put her in this position.  What would Esther do?

Faith and Action

Grace is God’s choice for us.  Faith is our choice for God, albeit one enabled by grace.  Faith is a decision, always accompanied by action, unless like the good thief you come to Christ while nailed to a cross and cannot move.  Esther carried no cross, but she stood at an crucial and dangerous crossroad.

Faith, on the human side, begins with a decision, and Esther made a fateful one.  She counted her faith in God more precious than the golden crowns of Persia.  She loved her people, God’s people, more than her own life.  She decided to stand up, speak up, act up, with the hope that the righteous would go free and the wicked punished.  Faith somehow always finds feet.  So, Esther used hers to approach the king.

Real faith weighs more heavily than a mere decision.  It comes with a condition and compulsion to do the will of God, for the glory of God, and the good of others.  Compulsion drives one to action, undertaken in faith, of which the temporal outcome is uncertain, though the faithful person’s eternal soul is secure.

Esther believed she would go to Heaven when she died, for the true and living God was her Lord and Savior.  She also knew it was a good possibility she would die soon, by going to the king uninvited, to expose a plot to which the king was partisan, all the while revealing her true religious identity and faith.

Faith is decision, faith is action, and faith is the willingness to die for what, or whom, you truly believe.  Most people do not have this kind of faith.  Some people have a like faith in country or family.  But by grace, through faith, Esther showed ultimate trust and obedience for the one true and living God, for whom she was willing to die, not realizing at this juncture that one day He would die for her.

So, off Esther went, to see the king, by grace, through faith, “for such a time as this.”

Christ the Lord

Jesus would not be born for four centuries after Esther.  So, Esther did not know the second person of the Holy Trinity, only the first by the power of the third.  God had given Esther grace, she bravely proved it with faith, but did it have anything to do with Christ?  Oh, yes.

Esther found favor, grace upon grace, when she approached King Ahasueras.  By faith she took advantage of the opportunity to invite the King, and his right hand antisemitic man, Haman, to a dinner she had prepared.  At that dinner she revealed her devout Jewish faith, uncovered the plot by Haman, and God turned the heart of the king toward her.  Haman was hung on gallows meant for Mordecai, the Jews were allowed to defend themselves and defeat their enemies, the planned Persian holocaust against the Jews was stopped, and the Jews survived, for another five hundred years, and more.

What if Mary, when confronted with an uncomfortable grace, had no faith, and could not bear to be the virgin to give birth to the Son of God.  What if Joseph, faced with an uncomfortable grace, had no faith, said no, I’m out of here, let Mary be stoned on the accusation of adultery.  What if Esther, in her uncomfortable place of grace, had no faith, said no, I like being queen, I like the perks of the palace, all I have to do is keep quiet about my faith.  What if she perished anyway, the holocaust was carried out and spread throughout the world, and the Jewish race had perished with her?

So, Esther’s is a gospel story.  It is a story about the grace of God.  It is the story about courageous faith in God.  And, it is a story of a people saved, the nation of Israel, who would give the world a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.