Our journey through the Old Testament and the history of God’s chosen people brings us today to the story of Queen Esther. 

As we’ve read the Old Testament, we’ve seen a number of repeating themes.  We’ve seen that the consequence for disobedience is to be sent away from God’s presence; but at the same time we’ve seen, over and over, that the only thing required to return is the bold admission that “I’ve missed the mark, I’m too weak to do this on my own; God, I need your help”.  And, we’ve seen over and over, whenever a person admits their own weakness in a situation, God is ready and willing to reach out and lift them up with his mighty hand.  After all, we know that God’s power is made perfect in human weakness.[1]

In the story of Esther we see again that if we’re faithful, God will make a way where there seems to be no way.

Or, let’s put it this way: Human Circumstances lead to Divine “Coincidences” that present incredible Opportunities.  Circumstances. Divine Coincidences. Opportunities.

Esther’s Situation

In case you’ve forgotten the story of Queen Esther – or didn’t get a chance to read it yet this weekend – let’s catch ourselves up.

God had led his people into the Promised Land, but over a period of 800 years, they decided they would rather go it alone than fulfil their mission to live out the revelation of Almighty God in the world.  So God sent them out of the land, sending a foreign king to lead them into exile. That generation responded by taking their faith and mission seriously: they heeded the words of the prophets, they taught their children the Word of God, and then the king allowed them to return and rebuild Jerusalem.  Not everyone could leave – some had taken on too much debt and found themselves enslaved; some had been given government jobs, and the king wanted them in the capital rather than on the outskirts of the empire; and some were bound up in the sadness and messiness of life: like Esther, a teenage girl whose parents died, leaving her as an orphan with no legal standing or protection in those days.

Esther’s cousin, a Jewish man named Mordecai, from the family of King Saul, was a civil servant – perhaps some sort of scribe who writes up and reviews contracts, who stands outside the palace gates to work with people as they come to conduct their business.  He took her in and provided for the girl.

Now King Xerxes of the Persian Empire was known for his parties.  We know from history that his empire stretched from Egypt to India, from Saudi Arabia all the way up to Uzbekistan.  And he invited all the governors to his capital in modern day Iran to have a six-month-long party.  One day he called his beautiful wife to come out and put on a show for the governors, but she refused, so he threw her out of the palace (that’s another topic for another day).  So his officials suggested they hold a mandatory beauty pageant to pick another wife.  That’s where Esther comes into the story – she’s pretty, so she’s forced to take part.

Now, one of the King’s officials, a descendant of Israel’s ancient enemy King Agag of the Amalekites, comes up with a plan.  He suggests that the whole empire would be better if the worshippers of the Almighty God of Israel were killed off, because those people refuse to bow down to other gods – though, secretly, he’s just upset that Mordecai, a descendant of the Jewish royal family, won’t bow down to him in the street. 

The King says “ok”, rolls some dice, does some math, and says, “alright, nine months from now, anyone who wants to kill a Jewish man and take his goods is free to do so”.  It’s a day of legalized murder and looting. 

And, to make a long story short, Esther happens to be in the right place at the right time to intervene.  She boldly decides to risk everything to confront the king, and as a result, the Jews throughout the empire are able to defend themselves; and in a major twist, the official who cooked up this whole plot is impaled on the pole he had made to hang the Israelites on, and Esther’s uncle, Mordecai, is promoted to be governor over the capital.

Human Circumstances lead to Divine “Coincidences” which present Incredible Opportunities.

Now there are lots who would look at this story and say, “wow, it’s all part of God’s plan”.  Or… “yes, the Lord works in mysterious ways”.  Or, worst of all, my pet peeve: “see, everything happens for a reason”.

That all sounds nice.  Some might even think it sounds religious, but resist temptation!  The worst temptations of all are those that are almost true. 

We have to react strongly against that kind of ridiculous half-truth that we can only fall into if we don’t know the Word of God.

Yes God has a plan, but come on, no, we do not believe being born into exile and orphaned as a child and forced to dance for an old man in a perverse teen beauty pageant is God’s way of doing things. 

You see – that’s the incredible danger of those ridiculously over-simplified statements.  We risk making God the author or cause of human sin. 

Yes, God has a plan: “For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11), but God’s plan is not that a girl’s parents have to die so she can dance around in a harem for a lustful old man.  That’s ridiculous.  And, worse still, if we say that this is part of God’s plan, it’s blasphemy, because now we’re saying that God is the cause of that horrible human sin.

Or, how often do we say “the Lord works in mysterious ways”?  But where is that in scripture?  Nowhere!  You can search the Bible in your pew from cover to cover, but it’s not in there.  Why?  Because it’s a lie! 

The work of God is to reveal Himself, not to shroud himself in mystery.  God says “my ways are not your ways, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts”[2], yes, but God says “call to me and I will answer you, and I will show you the great and mighty things which you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3).  God said right back in Deuteronomy 29, “the secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever”[3].  God does things that are mind-blowing: as he says through the prophet, “look among the nations; wonder and be astounded.  For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told”, and none of us can pretend to understand the height and breadth and depth of the mind of God,[4] but let’s be clear: God is in the business of revealing himself.  If something is mysterious, scripture says, it’s because we haven’t sought the will of God.  Think about that: when we spin that familiar lie “the Lord works in mysterious ways”, what we’re really saying is “I haven’t read the Word of God or said my prayers, so I don’t understand what God has been doing”.  But we should be clear on that: God is doing in Esther what he’s always been doing: turning human evil into good and drawing us back to himself.

Worst of all, there are those who would look at the story of Esther and say “everything happens for a reason”.  Gross.  Yuck.  What terrible heresy.  Because no, God’s perfect and eternal will does certainly not include young orphans being forced to join harems.  Let’s be perfectly clear on that.

Combat the easy lies with the Truth

We need to resist those tempting, religious-sounding lies that swirl around us, but we can only do so when we know God’s truth.

Human circumstances lead to divine coincidences that produce incredible opportunities.

God didn’t want Israel to disobey and go into exile.  God didn’t want the world to be full of murder and greed and jealousy and lust and exploitation and abuse.  The world wants to blame God for those things, but only because we’re trying to avoid admitting that humanity puts itself in this mess, as every little decision not to love your neighbour as yourself produces ripples that echo out over generations, like rocks thrown into a pond on a still day.

We can’t blame God for the circumstances in which we find ourselves, but we have to open our eyes to see that “coincidences” in the present are divine. 

See how easily we’re tempted to mix that up? 

We want to blame God for the past but not see him at work in the present.  But really, we need to see human brokenness in the past, but accept that God is working in the present.  God didn’t want Israel to sin and go into exile, but now that they’re here, Mordecai has an opportunity.  God didn’t want Esther to be forced into a harem, but now that she’s here, God creates an opportunity.

God doesn’t want our community to be chock full with people with insecure housing situations who are kicked out of their houses when they test positive and are forced to find a couch to bunk so there are a dozen positive people sharing a two-bedroom house, without groceries, and without money, and with a government that turns a blind eye when low-income people get Covid.  God doesn’t want that, but he’s at work in the “coincidences”.  He’s at work in the fact that we’ve been faithful, that when the phone rings at the church because the social workers say there’s nothing they can do, the Church of God is ready to deliver a food hamper as our Lord commanded, whether it’s 6 in the morning on Thursday or 8 o’clock on Friday night.

Why this matters

My Friends, let’s not fall into the trap of accidentally saying – or worse, believing – that God wanted the awful situations that humans find themselves in.

Let’s be clear: humanity is to blame for the mess we’re in, but God is at work in the present, in each moment, ready and willing to work each mess together for good, as soon as we admit that we’re in over our heads, that we can’t do it on our own, that we need the help that only he can give.

Circumstances lead to Divine “Coincidences” that lead to Incredible Opportunities.

We all have messy circumstances in our lives.  I challenge you to see every coincidence as a “God-incidence”, a God-given opportunity for a fork in the road, a God-given opportunity to say, with Esther, “here I am: I don’t know what the future holds, but I know I need your help, and I will put my trust in you”.

Does the Lord ever fail those who put their whole trust in him?  No.
Does the mercy of the Lord ever fail?  No.
Does the Lord work all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose?  Yes.

My friends, that’s the gospel.  That’s the good news you’ve been given to proclaim. 
May God give us the grace to fulfil our mission.  Amen.

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[1] 2 Corinthians 12:9

[2] Isaiah 55:8-9

[3] Deuteronomy 29:29

[4] Habakkuk 1:5; Romans 8:28