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Home , Book of Esther, Psalms

For Such a Time as This ( 4:7-17)

To me, this is a very personal and a very touching moment, because twenty-nine years ago when I first arrived at the

United States I had never dreamed that one day I would be standing here to preach in a language that is not my mother tongue. I am very thankful for having this opportunity. And thank you for bearing with me.

1 Introduction

The is a very peculiar book in the . So eccentric is the book that there are many debates among Bible scholars on whether this book should have been included in the in the first place. After all, the keyword “” or “Lord” which should be of such paramount significance has never occurred even once in the entire writing, not to mention the absence of other spiritual activities such as “worshiping,” “praying,” or “offering.” It has been argued that the form of the story seems closer to that of a romance than a work of history, that the chronicle is a charming love story indeed, with exciting plots, but of few true spiritual values. Maybe those scholars do have their points which cannot easily be com- prehended by lay-persons such as you and me. But if we put ourselves in the story and think about it for a moment, then it is not difficult to dis- cover that it is precisely under such an environment of “Godlessness” that this book brings forth a powerful message. The message is this — Yes, darkness is around us! Yes, enemies are amassing and prevailing! Yes, the surroundings of us are full of dangers and evils. Yes, we are often beaten, even defeated, and are about to be overwhelmed by the worldly tides and ebbs. Even so, “The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; yea, the Lord is enthroned as King forever” ( 29:10). The story of Esther tells us that while we endeavor to fight with our fate, just likes those exiled on foreign lands with no guarantee of tomorrow, while we look around and are so scared and so frustrated, we cry out, “The seas have lifted up, O Lord, the seas have lifted up their voice; the seas lift up their pounding waves” (Psalms 93:3). Even so, remember that the Lord we trust today is the Lord in Esther’s time. Though He seems to be silent and invisible, yet He is “Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea — the Lord on high is mighty” (Psalms 93:3-4). Thus, we walk this life forward, but not into a lightless territory reigned by , not into a murky water full of , not into a tempest where we are tossed up and down helplessly with no sense of direction, or into a wide heaving sea with no mercy. In all darkness of the night, in all cruelty of the enemies, in all waves of stress and violence, God sees and God is in control. Although we see no reference of God in the Book of Esther, we do see His actions here and there throughout the entire de- velopment of Esther’s life. The so many happenings, which make the story

1 climax after climax, seem to happen coincidentally, but they are actually God’s intricate interventions. Though God was not mentioned explicitly, by reading the story we all agree that God was there. Let us apply this lesson to ourselves. Look around. Don’t we often feel that our eyes cannot see God’s hand, neither can our touch His heart? Don’t we often feel that he is concealed, indifferent, and remote, just like the God in the Book of Esther when we need him most? Take these words with you. “O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my own tongue you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in — behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain” (Psalms 139:1-6). He is here, right beside us. At the darkest hour, in the coldest corner, the only light that can guide our steps and warm our hearts is our faith in God. With this introduction to encourage my brothers and sisters, I really want to bring out another point. I want you to be aware that, yes, we know all about this, “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” (Psalms 139:17), but how then should you and I respond to His grace, His keeping, and His precious thoughts? In this world full of kaleidoscopic events, in this society full of diverse opinions, what is the role of our mere existence? The wheel of time keeps turning. Ages come and pass. How can my life, and your life, which occupy such a short span, cause even a tiny spark that eventually can light the torch of eternal fire? This is really an important question.

2 For this Moment

We know that one of the most essential ingredients in a Christian’s faith is that in the course of human experiences, there is God’s action; and in the completion of God’s forever kingdom, there is human’s participation. The Bible is not just a set of doctrines. It is not a list of do’s or don’ts. Rather, it is a diary, recording how God’s Spirit is impressed in human footprints and how humans have learned or have not learned from this experience, which leads to their success or failure. History is “His story.” Maybe you and I are not very important persons. Most of our names probably will never appear in the high school American history textbook. But in the everlasting kingdom, the Bible teaches us, “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,” (Ephesians 1:4a). The purpose of predestination is that, under the influence and guidance of God’s Spirit, by means of the smoothness or roughness of the earthly environments, we can reveal step by step God’s plan and bring out God’s will through our lives.

2 Therefore, let us stop for a moment and reflect upon ourselves. Let us put down our busy schedule and reflect upon the days that have passed. In the center of our mundane lives, where have we placed our hearts? The leaves come and go; so do our days. Every single leaf blown away carries a chapter of our story. On it may be marked a section of damage or sadness, or a section of blessing or victory. In this repeated cycle, are we wasted away ignorantly and powerlessly, or are we knowing surely, moment by moment, that I live for such a time as this — that I will see His magnificence everywhere, that I will see His footsteps in the forest and His fingers on the roses; that His impulse in my heart, His lamp onto my feet, His light onto my path, and that my life, because of his presence, shines with brightness and truth; that I am, because He is? The Book of Esther is not just telling an old, affecting story. Neither is it just passing down statutes, or laws, or commandments of morals. It is also recording a critically important historical event. Had that wicked man ’s conspiracy gone through, then five hundreds years before was born, the entire race of Jews would have been exterminated. Were there no more Jews, the prophecy that will be born from the root of would never be fulfilled. Were God’s plan of hindered, the fate of humans would never be the same and the whole world would continue to lay in and darkness. Haman’s crafty scheme is not just to revenge his rival ’s unyieldingness to his authority, rather it is part of Satan’s machinations to completely cutoff “the woman’s seed.” This is such a colossal event with the gravest, unimaginable, uncharacterizable consequences that Mordecai was right in saying to Esther, “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place” (:14a). Do you think that God will let a little man such as Haman have his way to interfere with the eternal plan? Of course not. But what deserves our full attention is that, at this crisis, we see how a woman, who must be a young woman for she was crowned as a queen for only five years, by her obedience, at the risk of her life, with her , saved her entire tribe and maintained God’s salvation plan. Its effects ripple through generations even onto you and me. We can say in the most general terms that God sees the larger picture and that God controls the overall development. But we must also say in the most specific terms that Esther must willingly offer herself, at this critical moment, to be used as a pawn on the chessboard to turn the situation around. “Who knows but that you have come to the royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14b). said Mordecai to Esther as a wake-up call. Esther heard it, obeyed this call, grasped this opportunity, and made herself to become a ring in the eternal chain of salvation. This is a lesson for us. Shouldn’t we also maintain such an attitude, at whatever position that God has placed us, that we know that we come to this position for such a time as this?

3 3 Our Time

I know that some Bible students insist that the Book of Esther should be interpreted as a foreshadow of salvation. For instance, Haman’s evil and in- trigues are precisely Satan’s characteristics; Mordecai’s teaching and advising represent precisely how the Holy Spirit works; the Jewish people’s being sold and facing destruction symbolize precisely the human race being cursed and doomed. The intercession and pleading by Esther and the salvation, joy and peace that followed represent the grace of Jesus Christ. Such a comparison is not only interesting, but may have its theological significance. But that is not the message I want to convey to you today. I also know that Jews still celebrate , the Festival of Lots. This is a day of joy. In contrast to Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, which is a day of sanctity and solemnity, Purim is a day of unrestrained revelry and irreverence. On this day, they dress up in funny and peculiar , send gifts to friends, give charity to the poor, and eat a festival meal. Most impor- tantly, they listen to the public reading of the Book of Esther. Whenever the name of Haman is mentioned in the reading, they will knock at cups, bowls, pitchers, vases, or any available vessel in front of them and stamp the floors to make noises to cover up his name. On a more serious side, they use the Book of Esther as a textbook of survival through hostile environments. They teach children to learn to make a bargain in a gentle yet effective way such as what Esther did to her king, to avoid mistakes from listening to the wrong advice such as what Haman did with his friends, to hide your true identity when necessary to protect yourself such as what Mordecai did in Persia, and to strike back enemies’ cruelty with no mercy when there is a chance. These kinds of lessons are derived through humanism. They are interesting and perhaps practical, but are deviated from the truth. Regardless, that is not the message I want to convey to you today. I also know that people generalize the personage of Haman in the Bible to the many “Hamanians” across the different sectors of the society. These Ha- manians are those who are self-centered, imperious, arrogant, sneaky, narrow- minded and intolerant of others. They often use their stature, power or wealth to oppress or prey upon those who are innocent, inferior, or weak. In fact, there are even organizations that, in the name of promoting social , have compiled lists of today’s Hamanians from which, of course, you can imagine that various kinds of strife, opposition, arguments, and conflicts arise. Such an abstraction of Haman’s characteristics offers an interesting sociological and psychological theory, but that is still not the message I want to convey to you today. Then, what exactly do I want to convey to you? What exactly do I want you to see? I pray that the Holy Spirit will help us to see the moment that belongs to our very own, and that we are able to grasp that moment, and strike to make it into eternity, completing the special purpose of God’s

4 selection of us. The Bible says that, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven” ( 3:1). It also says that, “For there is a time and procedure for every matter” (Ecclesiastes 8:6a). Our very own special moment I refer to is not the time when we eat, or drink, or weep, or laugh. It is not the time when we scatter the stones or gather them together. Rather, I refer to “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to me” (Psalms 139:16). Yes, those moments, written in the book and specifically set by God for me, are the moments I must be very conscious about. Let me give you some examples. Remember Enoch who used to live like his ancestors and others? Follow- ing the typical pattern of earthly lives, he was born, then he became a father, then he would have just died like those monotonous accounts in Chapter 5 of the . But at age 65, “Enoch walked with God 300 years,” (Genesis 5:22), until God took him away. Remember Noah who spent one hundred years in building the ark? With the technology at that era, it must be difficult to build such a large boat. How much perseverance did he need to sustain the mockery and to the animal over such a long period of time? But “Noah did everything just as God commanded him” (Genesis 6:22), because he knew “that day” would come. On that very day, Noah took his family and the animals into the ark and found refuge. Remember ? The highlight of his life was at that very moment when “he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son” (Genesis 22:10). Just like Esther, he did not know beforehand what would conclude his action, but his fear of God made him to spare nothing, including his beloved son, for God. Oh, that moment when his hand was just about to strike down must the darkest and lowest moment in his life, but it was also the most glorious. Remember Joseph? Out of fifty chapters in the Book of Genesis, thirteen chapters are devoted to recording his story. He was sold at seventeen and became Pharaoh’s minister at thirty. By the time he saw his father and brothers again, he was thirty-nine years old. He had waited twenty-two years for such a moment as this. A moment to revenge? Or a moment to realize that “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20). Remember who was trained first in the palace for forty years to learn all the knowledge in Egypt and then again in the desert for another forty years to learn to attend those stupid yet stubborn sheep? It took eighty years long to prepare him for just that moment when he stood alone in Mount Horeb and was sent “to bring my people the out of Egypt” (Exodus 3:10). Remember the urgency when his people would be either crashed by the army of Pharaoh or be drowned in the water of Red Sea? At

5 that moment, Moses stood alone at the bank, with his staff over his head, and shouted, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. ... The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still” (Exodus 13:13-14). Remember ? How his moment came when he said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it” (Numbers 13:30). But why is it that the other spies thought that their moment of victory would never come? Remember the last judge in the era when “everyone did as he saw fit” (Judges 21:25b)?“The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground” (I Samuel 3:19). Why? Because in one of the nights when he was little, when everyone else was asleep both physically and spiritually, Samuel responded to the Lord’s call by saying, “Speak, for your servant is listening” (I Samuel 3:10b). Remember the moment when David faced down the nine-foot giant Go- liath? He knew that this was his moment to let “All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s and he will give all of you into our hands” (I Samuel 17:47). Remember when Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” (Isaiah 6:8a). His time began when Isaiah responded by saying, “Here am I. Send me!” (Isaiah 6: 8b). Remember when was hesitant in being called to speak for God? “I do not know how to speak; I am only a child” (Jeremiah 1:6). But from that moment on, he remained faithful to his commission. Although what he constantly passed out was a message of destruction and was called a “prophet of doom,” he in fact was a weeping prophet, lamenting for his people. “Listen to the cry of my people from a land far away: Is the Lord not in ? Is her King no longer there? Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their worthless foreign idols? The harvest is past, the summer has ended, and we are not saved. Since my people are crushed, I am crushed; I mourn, and horror grips me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is there no healing for the wound of my people? Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people” (Jeremiah 8:19-9:1). I wonder whether there is ever a moment in our lives when we deeply feel that since our people, our friends, or our families are crushed we are crushed. Who will go and cry out, “Wake up, for the night is nigh!” Who will go and light the lamp so that people can see? Remember the fishermen, Peter, Andrew, James and John? Their mo- ment was when they gave up their nets at the seashore of Galilee. The tax collector Matthew? His moment was when he stood up from

6 behind that booth to follow Jesus. The short man Zacchaeus? His moment was when he climbed down the tree to welcome Jesus into his house. The poor widow in the Temple? Her moment was when she decided to put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny, but that is everything she had to live on. If we keep counting, is it not true that those people blessed and used by God have waited for the day ordained specifically for them to arrive? And when the moment comes, they prove to God and proclaim to the world, that they have made the best decision, the most wonderful choice.

4 Conclusion

The Bible says, “The wise heart will know the proper time and proce- dure” (Ecclesiastes 8:5b). Mordecai was a wise man, knowing that Esther was an opportunity set up by God. But more preciously, Esther also knew that she must make use of that moment given to her. By the same principle, although we do not to see the days written in the book for us, the Holy Spirit constantly reminds us of the moments. Isn’t this a moment to honor God? Isn’t that a moment to edify my brother? Isn’t this an opportunity that will drive us closer to God’s heart? Isn’t that the chance to shame our enemy Satan? The question is, when the moment comes, are you willing to submit yourself and do it as Esther did? Dear brothers and sisters, there is the way, but it needs us to declare; there is the truth, but it needs us to proclaim; there is the life, but it needs us to manifest; the love needs us to give; the joy needs us to share; the peace needs us to make; the light needs us to shine; the path needs us to walk. We all want to give a in the future, but what have we given today? We all want to be a peacemaker, but what gesture have we demonstrated to a stranger today? We all want to harvest joy, but what have we sowed today. Why is it we look forward to capturing a big opportunity which is not in sight, and yet we let slip through the crack the small opportunities that are plenty now? Do you know it? The meaning of predestination is like making a special key, cut and polished into a particular pattern. The purpose of this key is to open or lock a special door. Only this key can have that functionality for that door. No other key can do it. Every Christian is chosen for a special place and a special purpose. Only this person can enter this place. No other person can do it. We dare not to ignore the special position. If it is so, “Who knows but that you have come to the royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14b).

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